Gorgeous Greece

You may have noticed that I've been a bit quiet recently as I have been on holiday. We took the 3 boys to gorgeous Greece with the fantastic holiday company  Neilson. We had such an amazing holiday I really didn't want to come home. As normal we were completely unorganised, not with the kids stuff but with our own stuff. I hadn't really realised that Neilsons provided loads of free sports (windsurfing, tennis, sailing, fitness classes, bike rides etc) so I hadn't packed much sporty clothes and left my jogging trousers by accident. So I had to wear same smelly t-shirts to do sports in. Hubbie and I did the tennis course (him the intermediate and me the beginner). It was an hour a day in the blazing heat but the coaches were brilliant and fairly amusing, even if my tennis was complete rubbish (hubbie was runner-up in both singles and doubles - flash git). One of the tennis coach who was young but v.confident and I happened to mention to hubbie that he was the type of bloke I would have gone for before meeting hubbie. I so wish I hadn't said that as the mickey taking didn't stop. Then after about 4 days I saw him without his sunglasses and he looked he didn't look as hot as I thought (beady eyes!). Then to my horror, I found out he was only 19 and realised that I'd been lusting a boy that could be my son. I'm such an old leech!!

We also met some lovely friendly people, really normal and nice from variety of backgrounds, ages and different parts of the UK, all interested in doing sports. I've never had such an active holiday, I went for a 7k jog at 8am, a 27k bike ride, and played lots of bad tennis. Felt v.virtuous but still managed to put on 3lbs as lots of lovely food as well. Kids loved it, son 1 learnt how to dive and they all loved the kids club (was on all day but only had them in the morning) and son 1 and son 2 were lucky boys as hubbie sorted out tennis lessons for them as well. At their age, it was a holiday on a long boat along the Thames (I hated the life jackets my safety conscious Dad made us wear). I have lots more ditzy stories to tell about the holiday so look out for more posts.  

Getting confused

Yesterday, we went to our lovely friends (we'll call them Jane and Tom) for a BBQ. When we arrived with the 3 boys we were introduced to Jane's parents, her brother, his girlfriend and her nephew, a small blond toddler. I was sort of listening to the introductions but at the same time racing after the boys trying to get suncream on and stop them ruining their beautiful house. Jane's parents were telling me how they had looked after their grandson that morning and so I assumed that the toddler belonged to Jane's brother and his girlfriend. So later on I'm making small talk with the girlfriend and saying how she must have enjoyed her lie-in that morning and what did they do with their morning off. Strange looks from her for a good 5 minutes and then I realised that the toddler wasn't hers, he was being looked after by the grandparents as Jane's other sister and husband were at a wedding (I do vaguely remember someone telling me that). How ditzy and dozy. Felt a bit better when our other friend at the BBQ made the same mistake but he was a bit more direct in his questioning of the girlfriend so he didn't have a 5 minute 'weird' conversation. Lesson to myself, I must listen when people are being introduced to me.  

Being a working mum

Wow - what a working mother!

I have been having a few issues at work with workload and trying to fit everything into 3 days (I'm often doing work in evenings etc). I work set days due to childcare arrangements of nanny and grandparents. I have to sometimes go to meetings / deliver training etc on my non-working days and I have to arrange additional childcare. When I ask my boss if I can get paid to work an extra day he always remarks that the budget can't afford it (NHS Trust) and can't I just  swap my days around. I have explained about my childcare and that my nanny has other jobs on my non-working days but the message is not going in.

I'm sure I've explained my childcare arrangements but he doesn't seem to understand. I need to sometimes catch up with work and I believe its fair that I get paid to cover these extra days. Am I being a whinning working mummy? Or should I put up and shut up???

How do I explain in simple terms how childcare works?? Do I have to spell out, if you want me to work I have to pay someone?  Any tips or suggestions most welcome.  

Inquisitive children

Our adorable 4 year old who is named son 2 is always inquisitive and doesn't believe that anything will hurt him. If you say, careful you'll fall off that climbing frame he'll have to try it our for himself. Last night, he started playing with my perfume that I'd stupidly left on the side. I told him not to spray it as it would sting his cut arm (from another incident that day), as I go to the run the bath for bedtime I hear the loudest scream. He'd sprayed the perfume right in his eye, and stayed screaming for a good 10 minutes. After he'd calmed down he asked me to hide the perfume from him so he didn't hurt himself again. Maybe he's learnt a lesson, or everytime he smells Chanel Adore in his life it will bring back the memory of stinging eyes.

Son 1 is in Year 1 and we've had the letter reporting they will have sex and relationship education. Seems a bit young but hey, apparently he said they'll be talking about 'feelings', a bit fluffy for me but its a start. The only problem is that I've explained about the birds and the bees in another way, see previous post "Oh the lies I tell" and it will be embarrassed if he explains this to his teacher.  

My weekend round up

I had an interesting weekend with lots of different experiences. On saturday night my friend came to visit from Brighton so I took her to down to the river for a few drinks as the weather was gorgeous. We watched the sunset over Richmond Bridge and I realised I'm getting middle-aged as I was so fascinated by the ducks landing on the water plus as it was heaving in the pubs, we kept walking out of them all as we'd decided at our age we don't queue at bars!! But, the big shock of the night was getting the bus home about 10.30pm and some youngish blokes started a fight on the bus. The poor bus driver was calling the police but they didn't arrive until my friend called 999. I think I must be immune to violence in London as it only started scarring me when the guy who had stood up to these 3 abusive blokes was getting a good kicking. I was surprised at how many people did intervene and try to stop the fight, they probably had their 'beer armour' on! I was annoyed that this happened on Richmond High Street outside the train station and the police were so slow to arrive.

A massive contrast to a family visit to a Treacle Fair near Reading, as my brother has decided to become a morris dancer not the bells and hankies one but the ones who have sticks. I know - I don't get it either but apparently joined as it involved beer! The kids loved it and got to sit in a police car, fire engine and royal air force vehicle. The morris dancing was unusual and there's definately a type that joins. See their you tube clip

The mice have moved in

Our next door neighbour has had mice on and off for a while but the mice have decided to get a take a bit more of a risk and travel further afield into our house. We've heard scratching under the floorboards a while ago but hubbie saw a little mouse scruying across our floor a few weeks ago. Off I got to the mouse catching shop and I had a lengthy discussion withe the assistant about humane and more drastic measures to get rid of the mice. I decided I didn't want to catch the mice and let them free to run wild in a field as a) we're not near any fields and b) they're trespassing in our house so they need to face the consequences and let all their friends know our house is out of bounds. So I went for the "not very nice" option. After cleaning under all nooks and crannies and banning the children from eating any food whilst wandering around we put down mouse traps under the kitchen cupboards. I did think they'd packed up and gone on holiday (see Ancedotes of a Manic Mum) as now all our food is in a million containers. But a few nights ago came down the kitchen to be greeted by a grey mouse having a party. My scream actually made it jump in the air, we then found a dead mouse under the kitchen cupboards. Hence a long discussion with hubbie about whether the dead mouse was the same mouse I'd seen 5 minutes before as it was so scared that it had run into the mouse trap by accident. Hubbie was sure that it had been there a while but would not conduct a post-mortem. The next morning the boys wanted to see the dead mouse, so I tried to pick up the corpse but its little beady eyes were looking at me so had to get hubbie to show them. Son 2 then wanted to play with it, ah gross!! Hopefully they've gone but will keep you all posted.   

Stuck in the mud

I have signed up for a sprint triathlon which involves training 5 times a week and I'm finding a bit of a struggle fitting in. Last Sunday early in the morning I went out for a long session on my bike along the Thames. So off I set from Kew Bridge and was doing ok managing to cycle along the narrow path so I could get a lovely view of the Thames (I'm such a middle aged mum!). This was perfect until I got to a section near a bridge where I couldn't see how I could continue on a path, so I decided to go under the bridge (Barnes) as the tide was out. I sensibly asked the rowers who were launching (not sure if that's the right word) their boats if I could get back onto a path if I went under the bridge, to which they replied yes. Off I set pushing my bike, then the mud started getting thicker and thicker. I was struggling to push my bike through the mud and then it started going really wrong, my feet started sinking into the mud and I could hear the rowers commenting that I should be careful of the sinking mud. Omigod, now I'm panicking: do I leave my bike and save myself? Will I get stuck in the mud forever? Would hubbie pick me up in the car if I was so muddy? After 10 minutes I eventually got back onto the path, with mud all over my beautiful sparkly bike and no mud guards to stop mud flicking up everywhere. As usual, another embarrassing moment.   When I got home, after much discussion with hubbie of where I was, which side of the Thames I was cycling (how do I know if its South or North) I discovered that I could have taken the road path just a bit to the side of the bridge.  Damn it!