The Joy Of Kids, Plans, Running Around, Fire In The Hole
The Joy Of Kids, Plans, Running Round, Fire In The Hole.
Where to begin, I think the best way to tackle this week will be day by day.
Monday - The Joy of Kids, Tellys and Tesco
In the morning I had a meeting with Occ Health for a councelling session to help me deal more effectively with domestic stress, work stress being a piece of cake in comparison. During the session I admitted to blowing my top at the weekend and really walloping my youngest because she refused to tidy her room. She was so shocked by my confession that I was promptly reported to the local child protection services. At 3.30 I had a call by the a child protection officer wanting to meet me and the kid at home. The end result was that I had to rush from work early, collect the youngest for after school club then get home. After a fairly detailed interview, I had to sign a form agreeing that I would no longer use physical punishment on my kids. Towards the end my wife arrived, at first the social worker had thought I was a single parent. When she spoke to the missus, it was admitted the one hell of a lot was dumped on my plate. I've not heard any thing from social services since.
After collecting the eldest form her after school club I had to go out again the get the wife some watercress seeds and desk lamp for some other other biology work at her school. When I got back I discovered that the kids had knockedthe telly off its stand in the sitting rroomand it was no longer working, luckily after much checking and fiddling ect I discovered the the telly was OK but the SCART lead was knackered. Another trip to Tesco!, when I got back from that and had the telly up and running again, the wife informed me that she the school did not use low energy bulbs, she didn't know where the bulbs were stored, so I was out to Tesco again. I think I finally sat down around 8.
Tuesday - Meeting Up, Farewell To An Old Friend
I was meant to meet the missus for the turning on of the lights in Mold which is just a couple of miles away. The initial plan had been for the missus to collect to eldest from school, then I would collect the youngest and meet them there. As the eldest always has her mobile with her and her school is short walk from the town centre. It would have been easy to find them. However while I was at work the missus decided that she would collect the youngest, despite the fact that neither she nor the kid had phone and that they would have to get a second bus to get to the town centre. I'm not sure why I didn't disagree, I just think I was too busy trying to keep my head down. Invariably finding the missus and youngest was bloody difficult, but we fond them when she used a phone box. The kids threw wobbly when we refused to spend out at the fair or on some or other luminous junk being hawked. When we got home we discovered that our oldest chinne Widget had passed away, he has been with us for 13 years.
Afterwards I had most pleasant evening talking about plastic models and the such like at the monthly meeting of the Chester Model Club I really couldn't face any thing cold so yes, I went to a pub and had a cup of tea.
Wednesday - Spread Sheets, Welsh and Admin
Work was blur of spread sheets, meetings, best intentions and cacophony of activity. As it was I rather lost my self and worked somewhat later than intentioned. I ended up taking the eldest to her cheerleeding practice half an hour late, before I rushed the the youngest to Brownies, crammed down some tea and headed off to Welsh class. The class was OK, but bloody difficult as always. I cant really feel settled in the class, and really am the odd one out. Later that evening I made some head way with the planning of the Club's next years wargames convention in July. I think I crashed out around midnight
Thursday
At work, equipment trails dominated but I was struggling to concentrate, which made adjusting and configuring the test kit particularly arduous, despite the fact that I had developed and documented the setting process that I was working to. The evening was yet again another rush to collect kids and get them fed, before I went out to wargames club. Tat the club it was a mix of admin. Planning and couple of games of Wings of War.
Friday - Stats and ASDA
It was utterly hell for leather at work, with the continuation of trials and some pretty horrendous statisticall analysis, I a tried bloody hared to eak out awaterr tight case to go live with someequipment.. This was as much on account of the calls from managers impatient to see the kit out on the shop floor., than my own belief in the process. Yes, we are going live next week, but I did request that the equipment was issued to operators with opposing thumbs. Once the planning for the coming week was done, I headed off to collect my kids. Thankfully I arrived too late for the youngest kid's school Christmas fair. I met the missus there, then collected the eldest form her school. Before getting the kid fed at home prior to taking the youngest to drop her off at church kids group swimming trip.
While she was there I tackled the ASDA run. I time this to perfection so that on the way home I was bale to collect the youngest. Once I put the shopping away I was able to crash out around 9 to watch NCIS on FX.
Saturday - Feet Up, Chinnies In a Car
Fuck it! its been on hell of a week I took it easy. A bit of laundry, a bit of cooking, then plenty of time fiddling with my Sea Harrier, listening to pod casts and eating chocky biccies. I also had to take some photos of a couple of chinnes in the day light so that a perspective buyer could better see the subly of their coulortaion. The pics were taken in the car as I felt this was the safest location with good external light. Afterwards the missus was bit pissed off when I tried to find out how good a chinne was for wiping condensation off a car wind screen. I think shammy leather is better.
Sunday - Great Bowls and Fire
OH Boy, just when you thought it was safe to get back in to the water. This morning while cooking breakfast The missus distracted me because the hose had come out of its fitting on the hover, she had helped her self to my Tamia making tape in an attempt to fix it. Which it totally unsuitable. I was able to get the hose reconnected easily enough with a bit of fiddling, I also knocked the dust out of the filter. When I went back to the kitchen, it was full of smoke and flames were scorching the wall behind the hob. A frying pan with oil waiting for the addition of scrambled egg mix has burst into flames. The missus had always rather optimisticaly thrown a damp team towel over it which was already reduced to ashes. I grabbed a fire blanket I keep by the cooker, smothered the flames then dumped three properly soaked tea towels on top of it.
A slight issue with the tea towels, the sink didn't have any water in it and was on the other side of the cooker, so I soaked them in the downstairs loo. I have a policy of: if its yellow let it mellow, if its brown flush it down. The tea towels are now in the washing machine.
After I salvaged a sausage sarni from the mess, vented the smoke, cleaned up the kitchen and breathed a sigh of relief that the damage had been pretty minimal. But I really did need to get a new frying pan, so I took a rather round about route to ASDA, by round about I mean I added 30 or so miles to it. This gave me the time to chill out a bit while rolling though the stunning local country side, listening to a Runruig CD. When I got back the wife reported that our oven which is a separate unit from the hob and was untouched by the fire, had finally conked out and was not working at all. Over the past 8 years I have rewired it once and replaced the heating element 4 times, the thermostat was currently on its way out. I think its time for a new oven. We can manage for a while using the hob grill and microwave.
While I was at ASDA I stocked up on some other kitchen bits and pieces. Especially a new set of general stainless steel bowels for mixing, serving and large cereals. However their numerous stamped paw print motifs, does indicate that their original intended purpose was some what more canine.
Final Comments
Well that pretty much sums the week up. To all my friends across nation ocean and ether have a safe, peaceful and sane week. Though I'm buggerd if I can guess what mine will be like.
Chancer