Downsizing to allow food as well as heat and reverse-burglary

Monday 7^th February

Following a depressing January where we realised that a luxury holiday for two weeks was off the cards this year we decided to look into reducing our mortgage from gigantic to very, very large.  This downsizing in mortgage payments will result in us being able to afford food as well as heat.  This is a real bonus during the winter months when lettuce and cucumber is not very appetising.

That being said, I am still recovering from a Saturday night made up of lots of red meat and even more red wine.  Feeling like a good match on the night they are proving to be dire on the stomach in the hours and days after.  But it was worth it to watch men with large portions of rare meat on skewers slicing chunks off to be devoured with some English mustard.  It felt very Tudor-esque.

I am starting to wonder if my house is being reverse-burgled on a regular basis with strangers adding dirty clothes to my laundry basket.  I seem to wash and dry more clothes than belongs in my house.  Following this revelation I looked at the crime sight – www.police.uk to find there is no category for breaking into houses and putting things in.  I may have to write a stern letter to my local MP demanding this category be put in place.

Sporting triumphs to climatic endings

Sunday 23^rd January

My husband is beaming today.  After coercing my oldest son into playing rugby, one of the rugby coaches, also a famous ex-England rugby player, tells my husband our son is a natural and very good.  If he could, my husband would be wearing a sandwich board citing this wondrous event.

One of the mums helping to organise our renovation of our current run down community playground asked a few of us round to look at the presentation boards.  Feeling like a third wheel and getting bored I started to gossip about the other mums in the school playground.  This went down like a lead balloon so I kept my mouth shut and started sticking pictures of equipment onto white boards as though my life depended on it.  Hopefully my skill with a glue stick outweighed my bitching.

Monday 24^th January

In keeping with the sports theme my oldest son had tennis today after school.  I am starting to think I might be a pushy mum.

Being pushy and manipulative seems to be an inherited trait as my youngest, a two year old, managed to negotiate cake out of the nursery staff before he started his lunch.  The amazing part of this story is that there was no cake present, he had remembered it from last week when on every other day there is no cake.  Intelligent and manipulative.  That’s my son!

Wednesday 26^th January

Wednesday is never the easiest of days.  To me it is almost like a tease.  The promise that it is now nearly half the week over yet still so early and with lots to do.

This Wednesday proved to be the toughest of them all.  A comedy of errors and a tragedy of circumstances.

1.   When dropping my youngest off at nursery I nearly managed to run over another mother and child who decided to walk behind my car as I was reversing.  Apparently this was my fault and the mother taught her daughter some new words in the English dictionary.

2.   I was dreading today as I was going to sack my cleaner due to being always late for work or not showing up at all, claiming to have spent more than the allotted time to get more money and leaving cobwebs in full view whilst demanding the extra money.  In true fashion, an hour into not turning up I got a cheery text to say she couldn’t make today as something had come up (another cleaning job) and could her best friend (who I have never met) clean the house instead tomorrow.  My reply was curt but civil – “drop the keys off to the house immediately”.  Her reply was just as short – “fuck you”.

3.   Time being short and food needing to be acquired whilst my youngest was at nursery I was hoping to drive to my favourite supermarket.  The diesel lorry on the M25 had other ideas and wanted to cause an accident meaning an emergency resurface job needed to be done closing this part of the M25.  Going to the local dodgy supermarket where you have to insert a £1 to get a trolley their lift wasn’t working so I went back to my car, forced my £1 out of the trolley and went to the local butchers.

4.   On my way to the butchers I was fortunate enough to be behind the oldest known woman driver in history who didn’t like turning right at lights and left me stuck in the middle of the road behind her.  I hooted her to remind her of this and by sheer luck ended up at the same butchers as her.  She has now told me she is a wonderful driver, I threatened her with my dangerous driving and she has taken my registration number and will be reporting me to the police.  This was the third time today I had a cry.  Not bad for 11am.

5.   To end on a high, the rest of my day did not result in any more crying, police threats or being sworn at.  A good end to my humpback Wednesday.

Thursday 27^th January

My youngest son and I went to Gambados this morning.  This is a wonderful place for children and a chance for me to meet lots of snobby mothers dying to drink their cup-of-chinos in peace whilst their darling “Anastasia” smacks the living daylights out of another innocent child.

At lunchtime the letterbox made a sound indicating my evil cleaner dropped off the keys.  Hopefully my next cleaner will be a little more reliable. 

Friday 28^th January

I am so glad it is Friday, but not half as glad am my friend who has twin boys of 10 months, a lazy fiancé who does nothing and a dog who needs constant attention.  She is frazzled, tired and in need of a lot of help and love.  If only her fiancé knew!

Technical sexy sirens and faulty fruit !

Monday 17^th January

I am immensely proud of my technical prowess today as I have successfully managed to download a nasty virus on my computer wiping out practically all my important information whilst also deleting all access to the internet. 

Talk about multi-tasking.  I should be taking notes from this virus.  Not only did it put my task abilities to shame but it also managed to put a strain on our marriage by creating a huge row between myself and Mr Kingston.  It is the virus equivalent of Angelina Jolie.  Its name – “AntiVirus8” just incase you ever come across this sexy, multi-tasking siren!

Tuesday 18^th January

In keeping with my technical hellish week, my very expensive and smart looking hands free kit has decided to give up the ghost.  It won’t turn on, won’t charge when plugged in and doesn’t look sexy anymore.  Do you think it got wind of my computer affair with the sexy virus and has decided it is not worthy of my attention?

Wednesday 19^th January

I’m nothing if not consistent.  They say three time’s the charm and in this case the third item on my technical list is my smart phone named after a small fruit.

Whilst getting my weekly aerobic exercise in a disease infested indoor play, the phone froze and died.

After preparing its last rites otherwise known as swearing at it and throwing it against a wall I went to the local mobile phone hospital AKA my mobile phone provider.  They were extremely helpful.

I was kept waiting for over 20 minutes by the staff whilst they joked about the latest “app” which distorts your voice.  During this time my two year old got bored, tore down a couple of posters and rearranged the accessories from the wall to the floor creating an art piece Tracy Emin would have been proud of.

This seemed to get the employee’s attention and after a few minutes of staring at me like I was the evil enemy of Supernanny she patronised me for a further ten minutes before telling me I hadn’t brought ID and there was nothing they could do.

I was ecstatic and hugged her gratefully for showing such compassion and grace to a bedraggled mother.

I then left the shop crying.

On the plus side I’ve found an electrician.

Thursday 20^th January

It is my father’s birthday today and due to my busy technical week I had forgotten to get him a card but thanks to the invention of young children I managed to get away with this by forcing my six year old to sing happy birthday over the phone whilst my two year old said “gran-da” a lot in the background.

This worked a charm.  Plus my mother bought him a present on my behalf which he loved.  So it was a win-win situation for everyone.

Friday 21^st January

When you become a mother your memory is not as good as it was during your heady days of alcohol, drugs and head banging.

I had completely forgotten the mobile phone shop debacle and took my youngest food shopping with me at the local supermarket.

He had the face of an angel throughout the process even when he managed to pull down Lloyd Grossman curry sauce jars from the shelf breaking them onto the floor, my expensive boots and jeans.  He was also angelic whilst I plied him with the contents of my shopping trolley to keep him placated.

I’m going alone next time!

Saturday 22^nd January

Post Offices! I hate them, nearly as much as the people who serve in them and the customers who queue for them.

Today was no exception when the man in front of me pretended to care that the queue was unusually large and my parking ticket was nearly up.

He could see I had only one parcel to send freepost and sympathised with my plight of the worry of getting a parking ticket.

He then proceeded to carry on with his four unpaid for, bulky and un-weighted parcels delaying me just long enough to have to flirt outrageously with a traffic warden.

Luckily the traffic warden was a nearly blind monstrosity and was glad for the sexual attention.

Saturday 15th January

I really believe some people are put on this earth just to annoy me.  I would even go so far to say that I don’t think they actually exist but just pop up when I am around to wind me up.

Today was such an occasion.  I was having my nails done in a salon I frequent every three weeks.  Beside me was another client who was enjoying names dropping at every turn.  “I bumped into so-and-so the other day”, “I had a lovely chat with such-and-such” and “they were wonderful people, so lovely.  I can’t think why the paper is so scathing” etc etc.

This in itself was irritating but then Heston Blumenthal came up in conversation.  I remarked that I loved his excitement about food and she said she “can’t stand the man”.  She went onto to say that her daughter frequented The Fat Duck but found it all very tedious and that the restaurant should just serve normal food and get over itself.  Why on earth would you go to a restaurant famed for its difference and complain about it, especially with a huge price tag.  Well she couldn’t answer that one.

Later she buggered off and another client came in with the same passion for food as me and despite realising she is a woman of the world there was no names dropping, no airs and graces just a charming woman who gave me some names of lovely restaurants to go to.

Friday 14th January

After dropping my eldest son off to school despite his protests of having a phantom stomach ache, I went to my weekly toddler music group.  The great thing about having a child is that you get promoted to the next class regardless of ability as these groups are determined by age rather than skill.