(no subject)
Today was my youngest nephew Aaron's birthday party, which means a trek into town by bus, then another trek out of town on a totally different bus. Thankfully this time we got on the right bus for the second leg of the journey, so our travel time was greatly shortened, but it still took about an hour.
We went over to Mam's first, since we were travelling down to my brother's house together. We spotted her halfway from the bus stop to her house, as she'd gone to the supermarket first, and Rowan ran on ahead to catch her up. I followed at my own pace, but when I got to the garden gate I was greeted with the sight of my mother sat on her backside at the bottom of the garden steps, trying her hardest not to sob.
It seems that her legs gave way as she headed down the steps, her wheeled shopping bag in tow. She grazed her arm from the elbow up when she scraped it along the outside of the house - the elbow was really scratched up and bloody, as the wall's one of those mixes of cement and tiny, tiny stones - and bruised her hip. So instead of heading to town almost straight away, I ended up playing amateur nursemaid for half an hour, attempting to clean and dress the grazes as best I could before making a cup of tea to soothe her very frayed nerves. Once we got to town, we headed into Boots for some Germolene salve and picked up some of that wound-cleaning spray. I wasn't confident I'd been able to clean the cuts properly at her house, as there was no kind of antiseptic available, and the back garden's not exactly clean.
This meant that the first thing we had to do when we got to Gareth's house was redress her elbow; not fun, understandably, as both the spray and the salve stung like hell. Mam was a little shaken up, and is feeling each and every ache and pain anyway, so her mood was not the best during the party. Plus she's been feeling hurt by the apparent lack of attention from by brother and his wife in recent years - which makes me roll my eyes a little as that's always frustrated her whenever her in-laws have felt the same way. Mind, she's been making remarks at me for the fact I've not been around every weekend for a while - or in fact hardly at all, in recent weeks. But then again, when you're told your son's not welcome to visit if he can't behave himself, would you be in a hurry to visit?
However, there was a fairly new baby at the party that Mam got to hold and feed, so she was fairly well distracted from her grumpy mood.
Me, I had fun about an hour or so in when I started helping my brother with the barbeque. He'd had the bright idea to light both his barbeques, intending for the smaller of the two to be used to cook the vegetarian options. As usual, he had enough food to feed a small army, so he wasn't quite able to deal with the two barbeques by himself and I volunteered my services. Of course, since I have no idea how to cook Quorn burgers and Linda McCartney sausages, the offerings ended up just this side of burnt to ensure they were fully cooked! lol!
The disadvantage of volunteering for cooking duties, however, is that you don't get to stop and eat till everyone else has already dug in and taken all the best bits! *chuckles* I didn't get any of the lamb chops or chicken, but I did get the requisite hamburger and sausage (didn't feel like making a hot dog) as well as a piece of seabass I cooked myself! *grins* Gareth was very grateful for my help and complimented me on how the fish turned out. *pleased* Had to leave him with about a quarter of the stuff left to cook, as it was almost three hours in and Mam was making it obvious she wanted to leave. So I grabbed myself a plate, so that I could actually eat something before we left. I then had to try and extract Rowan from the party - never easy at the best of times, but a nightmare when he's as tired as he was today - and we hung around just long enough for everyone to sing Aaron 'Happy Birthday' and my sister-in-law to put Rowan's partybag together.
(Of course, as we were walking down the street Mam starts saying that we could have stayed if we'd wanted to and she'd have made her way home alone.... yeah right! If that was true, why was she hovering alongside the barbeque area looking pathetic?)
I now need to spend tomorrow working on my End of Course Assessment for the OU, which is due on the 29th but has to be submitted by post... My tutor also phoned me this afternoon to arrange when my spoken assessment would happen too, so once I'm done with the written part I need to finalise my notes for that too. It means using the online chatrooms, which is a harrowing experience, but once it's done that'll be the end of the course! \0/ I can't wait! And I only need to get 40% on the ECA to pass the course - though of course I'll be trying to get more than that if I can.
Haven't seen Merlin yet, as we were travelling while it was on, but I shall be checking it out on iPlayer at some point soon. We watched Strictly Come Dancing while Rowan was cooling down ready for bed - I'm hoping this is the year Anton Du Beck manages to get his celebrity more than halfway through the series! He's finally got a young, seemingly quite flexible young lady, rather than the old crones they normally lumber him with, the poor love! And, patriotism aside, I have to wonder why my fellow Cymro Joe Calzage is still in the show - he's awful! *sigh* And its not even as though he's got comedy value like John Sargent did last year. That's definitely Lynda Bellingham this year, though she could improve with time.
And it is so nice to finally be rid of that awful Arlene Phillips! I got so sick of her spitting vitriol one minute, then simpering at the really fit male celeb du jour *rolls eyes* Alesha Dixon may not be a dancing expert, but as a former champion she's bringing a very fresh view to the panel of judges.
We went over to Mam's first, since we were travelling down to my brother's house together. We spotted her halfway from the bus stop to her house, as she'd gone to the supermarket first, and Rowan ran on ahead to catch her up. I followed at my own pace, but when I got to the garden gate I was greeted with the sight of my mother sat on her backside at the bottom of the garden steps, trying her hardest not to sob.
It seems that her legs gave way as she headed down the steps, her wheeled shopping bag in tow. She grazed her arm from the elbow up when she scraped it along the outside of the house - the elbow was really scratched up and bloody, as the wall's one of those mixes of cement and tiny, tiny stones - and bruised her hip. So instead of heading to town almost straight away, I ended up playing amateur nursemaid for half an hour, attempting to clean and dress the grazes as best I could before making a cup of tea to soothe her very frayed nerves. Once we got to town, we headed into Boots for some Germolene salve and picked up some of that wound-cleaning spray. I wasn't confident I'd been able to clean the cuts properly at her house, as there was no kind of antiseptic available, and the back garden's not exactly clean.
This meant that the first thing we had to do when we got to Gareth's house was redress her elbow; not fun, understandably, as both the spray and the salve stung like hell. Mam was a little shaken up, and is feeling each and every ache and pain anyway, so her mood was not the best during the party. Plus she's been feeling hurt by the apparent lack of attention from by brother and his wife in recent years - which makes me roll my eyes a little as that's always frustrated her whenever her in-laws have felt the same way. Mind, she's been making remarks at me for the fact I've not been around every weekend for a while - or in fact hardly at all, in recent weeks. But then again, when you're told your son's not welcome to visit if he can't behave himself, would you be in a hurry to visit?
However, there was a fairly new baby at the party that Mam got to hold and feed, so she was fairly well distracted from her grumpy mood.
Me, I had fun about an hour or so in when I started helping my brother with the barbeque. He'd had the bright idea to light both his barbeques, intending for the smaller of the two to be used to cook the vegetarian options. As usual, he had enough food to feed a small army, so he wasn't quite able to deal with the two barbeques by himself and I volunteered my services. Of course, since I have no idea how to cook Quorn burgers and Linda McCartney sausages, the offerings ended up just this side of burnt to ensure they were fully cooked! lol!
The disadvantage of volunteering for cooking duties, however, is that you don't get to stop and eat till everyone else has already dug in and taken all the best bits! *chuckles* I didn't get any of the lamb chops or chicken, but I did get the requisite hamburger and sausage (didn't feel like making a hot dog) as well as a piece of seabass I cooked myself! *grins* Gareth was very grateful for my help and complimented me on how the fish turned out. *pleased* Had to leave him with about a quarter of the stuff left to cook, as it was almost three hours in and Mam was making it obvious she wanted to leave. So I grabbed myself a plate, so that I could actually eat something before we left. I then had to try and extract Rowan from the party - never easy at the best of times, but a nightmare when he's as tired as he was today - and we hung around just long enough for everyone to sing Aaron 'Happy Birthday' and my sister-in-law to put Rowan's partybag together.
(Of course, as we were walking down the street Mam starts saying that we could have stayed if we'd wanted to and she'd have made her way home alone.... yeah right! If that was true, why was she hovering alongside the barbeque area looking pathetic?)
I now need to spend tomorrow working on my End of Course Assessment for the OU, which is due on the 29th but has to be submitted by post... My tutor also phoned me this afternoon to arrange when my spoken assessment would happen too, so once I'm done with the written part I need to finalise my notes for that too. It means using the online chatrooms, which is a harrowing experience, but once it's done that'll be the end of the course! \0/ I can't wait! And I only need to get 40% on the ECA to pass the course - though of course I'll be trying to get more than that if I can.
Haven't seen Merlin yet, as we were travelling while it was on, but I shall be checking it out on iPlayer at some point soon. We watched Strictly Come Dancing while Rowan was cooling down ready for bed - I'm hoping this is the year Anton Du Beck manages to get his celebrity more than halfway through the series! He's finally got a young, seemingly quite flexible young lady, rather than the old crones they normally lumber him with, the poor love! And, patriotism aside, I have to wonder why my fellow Cymro Joe Calzage is still in the show - he's awful! *sigh* And its not even as though he's got comedy value like John Sargent did last year. That's definitely Lynda Bellingham this year, though she could improve with time.
And it is so nice to finally be rid of that awful Arlene Phillips! I got so sick of her spitting vitriol one minute, then simpering at the really fit male celeb du jour *rolls eyes* Alesha Dixon may not be a dancing expert, but as a former champion she's bringing a very fresh view to the panel of judges.