NotSheep

Friday night, I’m sitting on my bed finishing up a phone-call. And I feel really strong tightening across my lower abdomen - really strong. And I’m thinking, “Phew, this is a heck of a Braxton-Hicks!” And it gets stronger, and stronger, until it’s really painful. This isn’t right. I call Barney and ask him to go fetch Scratchy, who helps me to the bathroom. Moving hurts, but then so does staying still. So I sit on the loo, and then I realise things are going black, so I lie down on the floor. I don’t realise I’ve actually passed out until I hear Scratchy calling me and saying so, and telling me I was shaking and breathing oddly while I was out. I’m feeling dizzy and sick. I ask for a cold wet cloth, and put it on my forehead, on my neck. I get back on the loo, then feel dizzy again and lie down again. I pass out again. I get a drink of water and get back to bed. I’m drenched in sweat. I can’t get my words together, my thoughts together. The abdominal pain is still really bad. I’m feeling absolutely dreadful. I phone the maternity hospital but I can’t talk properly - feeling too ill. They tell me to go in. Scratchy says he’ll drive, but I’m not happy about that idea - and I’m still in so much pain that I’m thinking an ambulance will have entonox on-board - so I phone an ambulance. I get as far as saying “ambulance please” before I have to hand the phone to Scratchy and pass out again.

Ambulance arrives, paramedics try to get me out of bed to get me downstairs. I manage to get up with help, but immediately feel I’m going to faint again, so lie on the floor. Paramedics saying “you need to stay with us”, I’m trying to tell them I’m going to pass out. They decide to put me in a chair and carry me down the stairs; I’m only vaguely aware of what’s going on. Barney has been sent next door to ask neighbour K to come in and sit with kids.

In the ambulance they tell me we’re going to hospital M, I say no, no SCBU there and if I’m having a 29-week gestation baby, we’ll need one. Hospital R has excellent SCBU and is only a minute further away, I convince them to take me there and paramedic spends time on phone convincing dispatchers to let him do it. Blood pressure low, even for me. Blood sugar fine. Pulse fast. Pain in abdomen subsiding but now coming in waves and more involvement of upper uterus. Paramedic convinced I’m in labour and clearly worried that he’s about to catch a 29-week baby but also clearly reassured that having had five babies before, I at least have a clue about what I’m doing…

Get to hospital. By now I’m feeling more with it, my brain function and speech more restored. Onto monitor. Regular contractions, enough to distract me but not very strong. Abdominal pain less. Baby’s heart on the fast side, but going up and down with contractions as it’s meant to. Things much calmer now.

Trace on monitor looks like early labour, but exam shows cervix closed. Swab taken. Protein in urine - was clear a few hours ago. Baby’s heart-rate normal - still going up and down with contractions but no longer on high side. Doctor insists on ultrasound to check baby’s position - I can’t see why that’s relevant since it’s clear I’m not in labour, but agree to very fast one - she takes much longer than I’m happy with, but everything looks fine. Baby is “breech” - again, not relevant unless I’m in labour. Doctor says if baby breech and I’m in labour they will “have to” do a c-section. I think “that’s an argument we’ll save until I’m actually in labour”.

Hospital wants me to be admitted and to have steroid injections to mature baby’s lungs. I’m not keen - I don’t feel the baby’s coming soon. The contractions are regular but don’t feel productive, I’m not dilated at all. Talk it over with Scratchy and suggest we decline steroids, go home, get a night’s sleep and I get community midwife out to review in morning. Hospital doctor not very happy with this, but will see midwife in only ten or twelve hours and can return to hospital then if necessary - and if contractions start getting somewhere before that, we can be back in under 30 minutes.

No car at hospital - Scratchy came in ambulance at my request, though he couldn’t have followed us anyway since the ambulance didn’t know where it was going until half-way there! So Scratchy phones K (neighbour) and asks if she would mind coming to pick us up.

Hospital gets me to sign AMA form (to say I’m leaving against their advice), then kicks me out of exam room as fast as they can…

Saturday morning: home shortly after midnight, had a reasonable night’s sleep. No more abdominal pain. Can feel uterine tightenings if I pay attention, but not enough to distract me from anything else. Phoned midwives’ office at 9 and left a message, midwife showed up at door less than an hour later, not having received my message yet, but having had a phone-call from the hospital. All looks fine this morning. She suspects UTI with very fast onset, suggests getting antibiotics to have in house in case things start again (UTI can cause pre-term labour). Baby active and well. Me too. She thinks we did the right thing in choosing to come home.

Plan: prescription for antibiotics arranged, will collect them this afternoon but not start them. Will continue to check urine for protein and leucocytes; if anything suspicious or any more contractions, will start antibiotics. If contractions feeling productive or anything else happening that’s slightly worrying, will phone midwife on-call, or head to hospital, depending on how worrying it is. Otherwise, help Barney work on his French GCSE presentation, relax and knit.

Ending up at hospital on two of three weekends was not in the game-plan. And nobody but nobody ever expected me to be suspected of pre-term labour. Ain’t life a blast?

It’s been one of those very strange days when all sorts of unexpected things happened. I’ll tell you about Monday and yesterday first, because - well, because they happened first, and that’s what I’m like.

I realised over the weekend that my driving licence had expired. In November. How did this happen? Don’t they send reminders? Well, yes they do…but somehow my address change never got processed after we moved, and I was a bit busy having a baby (Toby) etc, so it never occurred to me that the new bit hadn’t arrived. I never use my licence - a bank teller asked me for photo ID once and I started to look for it in my bag, but the next teller over said “oh, it’s all right, I know her” so I never took it out and looked at it. If I had, I might have realised that the address was wrong, and then I might have told them again, and the reminder they sent out might have been sent to where I actually live.

I phoned the licensing people on Monday and a helpful man there told me what I needed to do and pointed out that until I did it, my insurance wouldn’t pay any claims. Oops. So getting it sorted out moved rather rapidly up the to-do list. One of the things I had to do was get photos taken and have them signed by someone who has known me for at least two years and is a “respectable” person - which made me think hard, because we don’t have a minister and the doctor I’m registered with has never actually met me and the only teacher living in the street has only known me since last summer. Eventually I remembered a friend who doesn’t live too far away and is a teacher (though whether he’s respectable is definitely up for debate, as he and his wife were the first to agree).

George cut out lots of circles in the afternoon, so that I could use them with Beavers for Pancake Puppets. Meanwhile I browsed for other pancake-related activities we could do, and phoned my co-leader to check that the cooker in the hall was working. And got frustrated with Twitter’s recent flakiness.

Barney went to Air Cadets on Monday evening - proudly wearing the t-shirt they gave him last week - and Freddy went to ju-jitsu. George announced he was too tired, then took great offence when I told him to go to bed right after Freddy left. But y’know, if you’re too tired to go out, it doesn’t make any sense to stay up until the time you’d have come home if you’d gone out in the first place. In the meantime, Jack and Toby played in my bedroom with a VTech phone thingy. Jack was ordering in: “Can I order two ice-creams? Cold, with a stick in one of them and a stick not in one of them.”

On Tuesday morning, Scratchy arranged to work from home for a while so I could run out and get photos taken for the driving licence application. Somehow he thought he’d be at work by 10. Given that the chemist (nearest place to get them done) doesn’t open until 10, I’m not sure how he thought that would happen. He also thought that he’d be here with five children and still get some work done…heh. I got home and did some work with the boys and got more frustrated with Twitter’s recent flakiness.

Tuesday evening: Beavers. I took all the cut-out circles and various other bits of equipment with me, including the ingredients for making pancakes. We split the Beavers into three groups to make their pancake batter. Then we took them into the kitchen and…discovered the cooker was not working.

We talked about pancakes, played games, made Pancake Puppets and sent each Beaver home with a cupful of pancake batter. We told the parents to look at it as an easy breakfast the following morning. Not sure how that fits in with using up all the eggs and butter etc before Lent, but there you go.

Afterwards I went to visit my maybe-respectable-maybe-not friend and he signed all the things I needed him to sign. By the time I got home, it was nearly time to collect George and Barney from SJA Cadets, so I dropped Jack at home and the neighbour’s son at his house. My neighbour told me that I’m “an idol in this house” - I’m not sure how much of that is because I have five children and how much is because we home-educate. We were talking about getting them all up and out in the mornings. I’m in two minds about this: both he and his wife work full-time, and I really don’t know how anybody manages to do that and also manage children and their schedules, but also - well, they’ve only got a six-year-old and a teenaged daughter, so it does look from my perspective as though it must be fairly straightforward. I suppose we’ve all got our own ideas about what’s difficult. Anyway, I went to get Barney and George and finally got everyone home and to bed, having warned them that we needed to be up and out early today.

We had to be up and out early because Cassie was booked in at the vet’s to be spayed. They only do one spay a day, and they do it first thing in the morning so that they can keep an eye on the dog all day, so you have to be there by 9 o’clock. I reckoned that leaving at 8.30 would be okay - and I’m sure it would have been. Unfortunately I was woken by Toby jumping on me at 8.29. I haven’t leaped out of bed as quickly as that in a long time. Much shouting at everyone to get dressed etc - poor Jack was rudely awoken and almost dragged out of bed. Older children dressing and chivvying along younger children, many orders being given. We were pulling out of the driveway exactly eleven minutes after I opened my eyes. So it turns out I could do it if I had to - but I really don’t want to!

We got lost on the way to the vet’s (it’s a very rural practice), but got there with just a minute to spare. The four parking spaces across the road were taken, so I parked across the back of one car and told Barney to come and get me if I needed to move the car. I talked to the vet, filled in all the forms etc - and then two police officers came in and said, “Is that your Chrysler Voyager out there?” It turned out that someone had parked on the other side of the road - probably marginally more legally than the way I was parked, if there are such things as gradiations in the legality of parking - and between us, we were blocking the way of a large truck. And a police-car. Actually I don’t know if the police-car just happened to come along or if the truck-driver called them, but either way, I abandoned Cassie and ran out to move the car - and give Barney an earful for not coming to get me. Oh, he’d seen the truck. Oh, he’d even told the police officer where I was. But did he come and get me? No. And just as I was turning the car back onto the road, the text-message that Barney had sent me arrived: Car needs moved.

I provided all the children with a drive-through breakfast and took Toby to get new shoes. He has reached the dizzying heights of a size 5. No longer will it be true that his shoes are almost as wide as they are long Next stop: play resource centre, where the pickings were slim but at least my membership card hadn’t (quite) expired. Conversation with Barney en route about the ethics of animal-spaying: “Isn’t it sort of like genocide?” Well, I can see the reasoning, but I definitely think the pros outweigh the cons. I realised I didn’t have the vet’s telephone number with me (result of earlier speedy exits) and that I was supposed to ring at 1 p.m. to find out when Cassie should be collected, so I phoned Scratchy and asked him to google for it. A few minutes later he rang Barney (on top of everything else, my phone battery was dying) and told him he’d phoned the vet. Uh…beginning to see where Barney gets his (in)ability to follow simple instructions! (Not shouting at all now. Oh no. Of course not.) Oh well, one more reason for the vet to think I’m a moron.

And then off to the driver licensing office with my forms and my passport and my photos and my cash. The licence will take about two weeks to arrive, but will be dated from today, so at least I’m now driving with insurance.

Hm, what did we do next? Home for lunch, I think. A game of 20 Questions in the car. Barney: “Hey, guys! I have a really good one! It’ll only take one question!” Jack: “Is it a frog?” Barney: “No! It has to be the question we usually ask first!” Freddy: “Is it alive?” Barney: “Yes! You figured it out! It’s a live. Get it? It’s A Live.” Uh, right. Me: “So what exactly is A Live?” Barney: “Isn’t that really a philosophical question?”

Home and found the vet’s phone number myself and phoned at 1 p.m. Cassie was doing well and would be ready to leave at about 3. Good stuff. Checked the post and discovered a letter from the Education Board - oh, had they finally noticed us after only nearly seven years of home-educating? But no…it wasn’t addressed to me. Or even my address. It was, however, addressed to the Scout Group where I take Beavers, with the actual postal address of the Scout Hall on it. Not that we get post delivered there…but how on earth did it make it to my mailbox, in the next town, when it didn’t have my name, house number, street name or postcode on it? The mystery was solved when I remembered one of the other leaders I’d met at the Cubs Quiz a couple of weeks ago - he works for the post office and apparently they get confused because they can’t deliver to some of the Scout Halls - so they just give anything Scout-related to him and he figures out what to do with it. He must have remembered where I lived and decided that was the quickest way to deal with post for our Group

Also in the mailbox: a card about a parcel delivery. What could that be? I haven’t ordered anything recently. It said to collect it tomorrow, but I don’t plan on having the car tomorrow, so I took the chance and went to the post office anyway - and noted with optimism that there was a ParcelForce van right outside it. And yup, there was my parcel. Remember way back in November when I bought something from Ebay Canada for George for Christmas? It was posted to me on November 13th, and the Canada Post tracking system had it on their website as leaving the country on November 22nd. But it didn’t arrive in December; George was very understanding when I explained to him just before Christmas and said that he’d get it when it got here - but by the end of January, I’d given up hope of ever seeing it. Well, we saw it today. George is now the ecstatic (his choice of words) owner of a pair of Vector Prime and Wing Saber transformers.

(Oh, and can anyone explain to me why in the UK, where we call it “the post”, it’s “Royal Mail”, but in Canada, where they call it “the mail”, it’s “Canada Post”?)

We brought Cassie home too, all shaven underneath and acting subdued. The vet brought her out to the reception area from the back of the surgery and said “She’s just lovely!” Yeah, she is

And now…George and Freddy are at Cubs, Barney is leaving soon for Scouts, and I’ve got a website to work on. It’s a simple website, but the person who wrote it did so using Microsoft Publisher, so the code is 95% rubbish. I volunteered for this - it was a plea for help on Freecycle - but the bloke whose site it is has said he’ll service my oil boiler for nothing in exchange, which I think works rather well all round

Lots of the links in this post lead to posts which are now private because they contain photos (and I only keep those posts public for two or three weeks after publishing them). So log in, or else…well, or else you won’t be able to see them.

When I started this review, I thought it had been a quieter year than 2006. Now that I’ve spent half a day writing it, I understand why I’m so tired. I think I should go and lie down for a year or two.

The beginning of 2007 found us - well me, anyway - trying to come to terms with the imminent loss of Barney and Henry. The latter sulked for several days after I booked the flights, and the former had a meltdown during which he expressed his doubts and fears and began to understand that courage is not about a lack of fear, but about doing something despite your fears. We made a list of things we wanted to do before the big boys left, and started with a trip to Ecos and another to the Folk and Transport Museum, where we explored both inside and outside, despite the wild windy weather. We saw the marvellous Titanic exhibition and had a ride in a flight simulator. We discovered that our activities were going to be seriously affected by our local leisure centre closing for two years. I got tough on Henry over his maths, which suddenly improved dramatically, and we rounded off the month with a trip to the bowling alley.

February began with a home-ed trip to a Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust property and I noted how much boys like sticks (big ones in particular) and felt relieved that Jack did not repeat his escapade of our previous visit. The “wild” theme continued with a visit to a wildlife rescue centre and we checked one more activity off our to-do-before-they-go list when we spent an afternoon tie-dying t-shirts, with fab results. Toby ended up on antibiotics - the first time any of my kids has had them for over nine years - due to infected nailbeds on a finger and thumb; I also got an infection but managed to clear it with lots of soaking. Freddy and Jack and I went on a trip to the local marina with Beavers. We all went to visit the Palace Stables and St Patrick’s Trian. Arrangements for Barney to attend Henry’s school in France were made. We visited a wildlife reserve with a friend of ours who ran the place until recently - he was a wonderful guide Toby got his first haircut, and the rest of the boys attended Chinese New Year celebrations. We spent a day with some other home-ed families at an aquarium and rescue centre, followed by hours in what was probably the worst traffic jam ever seen around these parts - but we just managed to join the rest of the Beavers for a visit to the police station, where I was handcuffed (but only briefly ). We returned to the Folk Museum, since the weather on our last visit had driven us indoors fairly quickly. And Toby turned into BatBaby.

March found me trying to pretend that Barney and Henry’s departure wasn’t less than two weeks away. We visited the science centre again and we went bowling again and visited the Castle again. George and Freddy had an argument about who was going to be first in the dentist’s chair, and we went to not one, but two museums in one day - the first telling the story of the linen industry, the second a small local museum which had a special display of Japanese artifacts. Henry had an, um, interesting visit to a local school, to speak with the class of one of the Scouts and he complimented both my French and my ability to teach maths I took Barney and Henry to the Ulster-American Folk Park, where they discovered (re-discovered, in Barney’s case) the story of the Irish settlers in America and got fed pancakes fresh from the griddle. Scratchy took all the boys to the science centre to meet The Titan.

And then they were gone…

Scratchy went with them, they had a great few days, and Barney decided to stay (not that there’d ever been much doubt). I spent a few days with friends before going to collect Scratchy at the airport (and missing him), then coming home to celebrate Jack’s fifth birthday with cake and yet another trip to the science centre. We cleaned up the garden, explored Mind Maps, and I was rescued by one of the Beavers’ dads when I got a flat tyre. And Barney, still in France, had a brief illness, which made everything more difficult for everybody.

Wow…all that and we’re only up to the beginning of April!

Barney recovered, we all got some time outdoors and Freddy and George earned their ju-jitsu orange and yellow belts respectively. I returned a bit of electronics kit, then had to go and get it back when I discovered I’d actually returned something else entirely. Scratchy took George, Freddy and Jack to the science centre while I took Toby to his first speech therapy assessment. Easter was celebrated with much chocolate and a visit to the seaside. The boys helped prepare for two new arrivals who also brought many visitors, and Barney continued to enjoy his time in Europe. Later in the month, my laptop started misbehaving and we’d a couple of difficult phone-calls with Barney. We continued our gardening efforts - little did we know that summer would never actually arrive. George and I attended the Cubs’ District Sports Night and Barney cycled around the French countryside.

In May, I took delivery of a replacement laptop, we got lots of new badges, Jack was happy and we discovered a Dalek in the garden. Barney started to sound more cheery and went to the beach, and the rest of us had a party for Freddy’s 8th birthday and took the dogs to the forest. George went to Centenary Cub Camp and I took the Beavers to the same location for a Centenary Beaver Day.

In June we started with a playground day with other home-ed families and George acted all grown-up while I was ill. We had another home-ed outing - this time to the zoo - and the pups continued to grow like weeds. We took advantage of a sunny weekend with a trip to the coast, a picnic lunch on the beach and a visit to our friends at their caravan. Barney, meanwhile, was enjoying the South of France. Jack showed off his knowledge of anatomy. We took off for a few days at the caravan, during which we watched the deck being completed and I took the older boys to the Giant’s Causeway and the Rope Bridge. We decided to stay over the weekend too, and we spent most of our last day in the surf and the sand. Once home, Toby fell downstairs, George had a birthday party, we talked to Barney and returned to the caravan with an extra pup - the sister of our pups, who was being adopted by our friends.

We started the second half of the year by running away again - back to the caravan, on a moment’s notice. On our return, we called Barney, only to discover that his French papa had been in a bicycle accident. The next few days were worrying for all of us, as he had surgery twice and was in an artificial coma for over a week. When he finally came around, things started looking much better, but it was decided that in view of how long his recovery was expected to take and the fact that his wife would be spending a lot of time at the hospital, it was best for Barney to come home a bit early and perhaps return for a few weeks next summer. In the meantime, we prepared for a visit from four teenaged Japanese boys - Scouts, en route to the International Jamboree. Their arrival came with a bit of a surprise: they spoke no English. This complicated things slightly, but we managed by drawing, pointing, showing photographs… we took them to the castle, ten-pin bowling, and, along with the rest of their group and ours, to the Rope Bridge and the Giant’s Causeway. During that outing I had a fascinating conversation about education with a teacher. The lack of words-in-common didn’t prevent the teens and my own children from getting on like a house on fire, though, and we even started a little cottage industry in origami. We are very glad we volunteered for this; if you ever get such an opportunity, take it! Just two days after leaving our Japanese teens to one airport, I was on the way to a different airport to collect my own almost-teenaged son.

And on to August - the latter bit of the summer that never was. We started by gathering early in the morning with other Scouts from our District to mark exactly one hundred years since the beginning of the camp that started the whole Scouting movement. I got a brand new camera, we had more of those great conversations that make you wonder why you ever buy workbooks, Toby turned two and Barney and George attended the world’s smallest drama group. We all went to a friend’s birthday party, then came home and got ready for bed - only to have our bedtime plans dramatically interrupted when the car - the one that had been sitting in the drive, in the rain, not running, for over 24 hours - burst into flames. We had another day-trip to the caravan, Cassie got sick and then better again, and Jack wondered if we owned a magic carpet. We decided the local indoor playground really wasn’t worth the bother (or the money) and spent a couple of days with friends we don’t see often enough. We walked dogs, met some Germans and spotted some seals, we cut children’s hair, Barney played tennis and Jack didn’t do Kindergym. Toby did rather well for birthday presents and was cute, as usual.

September brought puttering and putering, attempts to purchase a new refrigerator, yet another week in the caravan, during which the dogs ran away and back, the door cut Tobys’ thumb, Jack learned to ride without stabilisers and we rode bicycles on the beach. Barney joined me and the other Scouting adults of our group in cleaning out the hall in preparation for a new roof and we attended the wonderful Last Night of the Proms. We got back into our usual routines of studying and activities and we knocked our Beavers numbers up over 20. We made playdough, wrote letters to Santa(!), squeezed in a few more days in the caravan before the summer-that-never-started came to an end. I got scabby knees and the boys all switched bicycles. We got lovely letters from one of our Japanese Scouts and his mother, one of our car tyres died (exploded?) and Barney went to Scout Camp - as did Scratchy, having finally filled in his form to become a Leader.

October brought our first real preview of teenage mood-swings, funny noises which took the one remaining car out of service for a week and cost us a small fortune - and then more, a month of no Scouts (because of the roof replacement), moans about socks, another science centre visit, a day at the zoo with hundreds of Beavers, dogs helping redecorate and National Schools Film Week, during which we saw Tales from Earthsea (largely because I hadn’t realised it was manga) and Arthur and the Invisibles. We had another science centre visit, another visit to the castle, lots of sickies around the house (including me), and dressing up for Hallowe’en.

In November I continued to feel very rough, Toby improved his flirting skills and was dismissed by the paediatric cardiologist, Jack was invested into Beavers and Freddy swam up from Beavers to Cubs. Barney turned into a teenager - we celebrated with a day at the science centre and the bowling alley.

December - visits to the dentist and the mechanic, Freddy’s Investiture into Cubs, the local pantomime, the purchase and installation of a Christmas tree, an announcement to the world, cookie-baking, gift-wrapping, and balloons and face-painting at Ikea. We had our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, which worked very well on all counts, especially the one that let me laze about on Christmas Day. And, of course, there was Christmas Day itself, after which we hibernated until 2008.

Everyone’s awake. Everyone’s had breakfast. My Japanese teens now know the words “bread”, “pancakes” and “bagels”.

I found the Usborne First Thousand Words book - a large picture for each theme (shopping, food, playground, etc) surrounded by smaller drawings of various items, with the word underneath each. I thought if they could point to things, it might help. I’m not sure they’ve understood that all they have to do is point, though; I think at least one of them thinks he has to learn all the words…

I did finally get across the meaning of “What do you want to do today?” They conferred for a minute, then answered, “Drink milk.” Ho-kay. They did that.

We got out an atlas and showed them where they are, and they showed us where they come from. Small town near Tokyo. Don’t ask me for more detail.

Freddy told them the Japanese words he’s learned from doing ju-jitsu. They appeared baffled as to why this child was reciting a list of words at them: gi, sensei, obi… I found photos of him in his gi, and they said “Ah, judo!” I agreed. It was easier that way

They know the word “google”. They appeared excited when they saw my laptop - a Toshiba. Okay, they’ve travelled a long way; familiar is good.

I showed them photographs of where we’re going tomorrow. I also showed them photos of the castle, and asked if they’d like to go there today - much nodding and “oh yes” (hey, two new words!) They also looked at photos of the giant chess game and said “Harry Potter!” Seeking other activities, I showed them more photos from this blog. This afternoon, they want to go ten-pin bowling.

They know the word “Playstation”. So that’s what they’re doing now.

My Japanese teenagers are here. Four of them, two aged 15, two aged 17.

And they don’t speak any English.

One good thing about being sick in the first week of December is that when you disappear into your bedroom for the afternoon - to do, uh, preparation for the weeks ahead - your children assume you’ve gone to bed and leave you alone.

Mostly.

Jack (pushing door - it’s locked): Mummy!
Me: What?
Jack: What are you doing?
Me (faking sick voice): Resting!
A few seconds of silence.
Jack: Then what are those noises in your room?
Me: Uh, I’m writing a letter.

He seemed satisfied with that, though I think he came back to listen through the door again a little while later

All the Christmas gifts have been wrapped, except for those that haven’t been bought yet. I’m going to have to brave the shops again at least one more time I’d buy on-line, but it’s getting a bit close now, so the shops it will have to be. Most of the outstanding stuff is for people outside the immediate family. If anybody has any really good ideas for girls aged 12.5 and nearly 10, let me know in the comments - which are now working again. It appears that while trying to fix the problems with this theme, I managed to prevent anyone from commenting, but I’ve sorted it out. I don’t think this theme’s going to make it as far as Christmas though; too many annoyances

Barney, George and Freddy had swimming classes this morning. George and Freddy were also supposed to go to the gymnastics class display, but the instructor said they had to be there for 9.30 - which happens to be the time that Freddy’s swimming class finishes, and the time that Barney and George’s swimming class starts. When I told the gymnastics instructor that, she shrugged in a sort of “that’s too bad” way and said something about it being too difficult to manage individual children with so many in gymnastics. I can see that, but I do think it’s a bit off to be getting annoyed because you’ve decided that a child needs to be there 2.5 hours earlier than usual and it turns out they’ve other commitments In the end they didn’t go to the gymnastics at all.

I worked out while they were swimming - first time in a week, but it wasn’t as hard as I expected. Meanwhile, Mollycat finally came home - a full week since the last time we saw her. She’s stayed out all night a few times, and has disappeared for two nights once or twice, but she’s never been gone as long as this before, so we were concerned. However she showed up this morning, looking plump and well, so clearly she’s been getting fed somewhere else - and one of neighbour’s cats came looking for her soon afterwards, so presumably she’s been hanging out with him. Very independent, cats. Human don’t have cats, cats have staff

Yesterday morning (once I’d finally dragged myself out of bed), we made giant snowflakes from the pattern here - they turned out great. I meant to take photos of the boys with them, but forgot - I’ll try to remember tomorrow. We’re planning to make candy-cane reindeer tomorrow too, and I might even manage to sew that tablecloth I planned.

Scratchy took the afternoon off because I really didn’t feel up to taking the boys swimming - and now that Jack has a swimming lesson on a Friday, we can’t just not bother. Henry decided to stay at home with me; I think he felt the need for a bit of quiet. And it was very quiet with all the others gone

It’s fairly quiet now too, mainly because the kids who make all the noise are asleep

Partly a normal Saturday morning, partly not: swimming lessons for George and Freddy at 9, followed by Barney’s lesson at 9.30. Nobody went to Fit Kids today - I don’t know if Henry wants to go again, and Barney decided not to go because the alternative was to hit the library - well, if books are involved, you can’t keep him away. (Funny moment at dinner tonight, with George making up a song for Barney, to the tune of “I want to move it” from Madagascar - this version went “I want to read it read it, I want to read it read it”, and then “lots and lots of words, lots and lots of words” LOL)

So they all went off to the library with Scratchy, then walked back to the leisure-centre for George and Freddy’s gymnastics club at noon. In the meantime, I went car-shopping. More about that in a minute.

Scratchy, Barney and Henry were supposed to be going to paint the Scout Hall doors at 1 p.m., but events overtook us and we didn’t get home until nearly 3 - fortunately about ten other Scouts did make it, so the doors, I am told, now look very sharp

As for me, I had a day I won’t quickly forget. For a start, I think I might be about to buy a Chrysler Voyager. I drove it this morning, it looks good, feels good and the price is reasonable. The guy who’s selling it seems honest (it’s a trade sale, not private, but it’s a small place and he’s quite happy for our mechanic to look it over). His wife is very nice too. How do I know that? Because she made me a cup of tea when I was shaken after driving into what, thankfully, turned out not to be a child.

There was nowhere for me to leave my car while I test-drove the Voyager, you see, so it was parked up on a grass verge on the other side of the very narrow country lane where the garage is - in front of the house of the guy who owns the business. As I drove, we were chatting, as you do, and he mentioned he’d four children. We got back, I said I was interested in the car, we agreed I’d call him on Monday morning, etc. Then he went to prepare another car for someone and I got back into mine and started to reverse off the grass.

And that was when there was a bang

I reversed into a car. Or, to be more exact, I reversed my big old MPV into a very small, very red, very shiny, very new-looking, very expensive-looking sports car. Exactly the kind of car you really don’t want to drive into. Not that you want to drive into any kind of car, but if you had to do it and you had a choice, you wouldn’t choose one like that, because you just know the owner of a car like that has spent lots of money on it and has probably quite a lot of emotional investment there too

I had seen it, but I didn’t think it was quite so close, and then, just as my wheel went down off the verge, I hit it. And in the next split second, it went through my head that it could have been a child coming out of the house

It wasn’t a child, thank goodness - just a piece of metal. But still, a very red, very shiny, etc, piece of metal. And its owner, who was talking to the guy who’s selling the Voyager, was not pleased. I wasn’t sure whether he was joking when I was saying “I’m really sorry, it was such a stupid thing to do” and he was replying “Yes, it was a stupid thing to do” etc. The selling-guy was being very reassuring and saying it would polish out in five minutes, telling me not to worry. His wife, who’d seen it happen on their security cameras, came out to see if I was okay, and seeing how shaken I was, insisted on me coming into their house for a cup of tea. The man who owned the sports-car, meanwhile, got into it and drove off.

While I was drinking tea, the sales-guy came in and said that the sports-car owner hadn’t been joking, and that his attitude was unnecessary. I said he’d probably been upset (especially since, I was told, he has no children and the car is very much his baby), but they were both quite cross about the way he’d behaved. I said of course I’d pay for any damage, but the sales-guy said that he’d sort it out, it would only be a few minutes’ work, and I shouldn’t worry. He left and returned again to say the sports-car owner had phoned to say that he’d gone home and polished it and that the mark had just polished off - and that he’d apologised for his attitude! He also said that on his way home, a piece of trim came off a car in front of him and hit the front of his shiny red sports-car… really not his day!

So no harm done in the end, except possibly to my nerves.

(It’s a bit ironic that my car is going into the body-shop on Monday to deal with the damage that was caused when it was hit by another vehicle back in July!)

I really really really really really really hope that Barney left the refrigerator door ajar last night after he got himself a drink.

Because if he didn’t, the butter and cheese etc are warm and soft and the milk is off and everything else is room-temperature because the refrigerator has broken down.

The door is now firmly closed, and I am leaving it that way until just before I have to go out, when I will nervously open it to see if the butter is any harder.

ARGH!

My washing machine has just poured water all over the garage floor

I thought at first the glass in the door was cracked, but I can’t see where. This leaves me with a problem: there is no way I’ll be able to get anyone to look at it until at least Friday, because everything is closed here on Wednesday and Thursday. There will be no way to get a repair or a replacement before then.

And I have at least two loads of nappies waiting to be washed.

This could get interesting

I’ve been thinking about this En Famille exchange thing. Briefly, a child from the UK (or wherever) is matched with a similarly-aged child in a similarly-minded French family, and the UK child goes to live with that family for six months, after which he/she and the French child come back and live with the UK family for six months. They live as siblings, the visiting child is expected to speak the visited country’s language the entire time, etc. There are all sorts of rules about not visiting and not having too many phone conversations and things like that.

My feeling is that it’s a fabulous opportunity, but that six months is a very long time in the life of an eleven-year-old, never mind an eight- or nine-year-old, which is, according to the organisation, the best age to do it. However they do offer one-way deals, where a French child lives with an English-speaking family for six months (being a French-based organisation, they have more French children looking for exchanges than they do children from elsewhere). If the hosting family later decides that their child should go to France, that can be arranged.

Scratchy and I discussed it briefly, and I decided to raise the possibility with Barney, to see what he thought.

Not only does he think that, while he’d miss us, he’d quite like to go - he’s already planning what he should pack! Help!

…if I printed off labels with our names on them and stuck them on the insides of our Christmas cards instead of actually writing on them?

Even if I’ve a baby who likes to keep at least one of my arms busy and preferably both, and a still-sore rib, and it’s two weeks before Christmas and some of my cards have to go to Canada and the US?

I already tried printing directly onto the cards; the card is too absorbent and the ink blurs so it’s illegible.

(And do I sound like I’m panicking yet? 8-O)