28th June 2010 (Monday)

Hello lovelies, must pop something in here and say thank you very much for all the well-wishes on the 27th – much appreciated. Well today I spent madly dashing from one place to another. First off load up the car with stuff from the garage, and go to the lockup – only to discover that I’ve (like the clever girl I am) forgotten to bring the keys to it. Hmph. Well luckily there is an initial, unlocked door and an inner, locked door, so I just pile up the stuff inside and leave it while I go and get my ‘pink slip’ – no, not a sexy piece of negligee, but a sort of rudimentary MOT. Once that’s done, over to the RTA (Road Traffic Authority) to pay them some more money for purchase tax on the car and the road tax for the year (took a while, what with filling in forms and waiting – usual scenario), then back home to pick up lockup keys and more stuff to take there (finally the end of it, garage now empty). Back to lockup, haul stuff in (including the stuff I left there before), hare back home to check up on the Littles to see whether she’s eaten her lunch properly (she’s been on some sort of hunger strike and was coming back having eaten and drunk nothing, and not having gone to the loo – results disastrous). I’d threatened to bring her home form school early if I found that she hadn’t eaten her lunch again, and hey presto when I checked, everything gone and a good deal of the juice gone too. She really wants to stay at school, obviously. Well then manage a brief spot of lunch before a very-fast-tidy and going to pick the Littles up from school anyway.


After which, she was intermittently but consistently Bad. I don’t know what the deal is but something’s going down, it’s a constant struggle at the moment. I’ll just have to hang on for grim death until the end of term and then perhaps she’ll calm down – fingers crossed. Anything she can do, at all, to annoy or cross me, she will not fail to accomplish. Needless to say I don’t take kindly to this. Things start to get loud. I hate it. Every time I think ‘well maybe that’s it, it’ll all be fine now’ boom, there we go again… ah well. She’s asleep now, thank god.

Saturday was actually very enjoyable, the dreaded Christian Female Croquet party was great fun, and only extremely mildly Christian, and relatively inoffensively so. Croquet was marvellously bloodthirsty and the little old biddies teaching us and the other girls themselves were all very good fun, we stayed there until the sun was quite setting and went home thoroughly contented. Plus someone brought some stomach-bulgingly satisfying sweet pastries, on which we gorged – all good stuff. The Littles went to Indiah’s birthday party and had her first taste of Nuggets (which she liked), lost a helium balloon and brought home a twisty-dog balloon. All also very satisfactory. The Mr as usual did a sterling job of looking after her while I went off and did my fripperies.

Sunday started off very nicely, I had a lovely lie-in (mind you compared to the Mr I always do, that little harridan always goes for him first) and was then regaled with lovely cards, gorgeous new perfume and a mountain of much-needed new socks (I’d specifically asked for both). Fantastic. We went for a quick look at a house (unsuitable), and then.. oh dear, Littles kicked off again. Ah well. Never mind. Anyway, we finally went out for a walk to the lagoon in glenrock (up from Ash where we used to go walking), and it was exceedingly peaceful and relaxing. In fact, so peaceful and relaxing that I fell entirely asleep, in muffler and jacket on the quiet sandy bank, while the Littles got insanely dirty and wet a few feet away. By now we were barely on speaking terms anyway so she probably reckoned in for a penny in for a pound. Actually I don’t know what she reckoned – something not entirely along the lines of what one normally would do though, I’m pretty sure. Anyway, the little ripples on the surface of the lagoon catching the slanting winter light, and the call of exotic birds from over the still water, with the distant crash of waves in the background, more than made up for it. Perhaps we’re all pretty tired.

Talking of which, bedtime. Lots of love, Nancy xxxx