Journal Entries
Why do I torture myself this way?
Posted Dec 27, 2010
Love, Actually. Why did I just spend three hours watching it?
Discuss this Journal entry [9]
Latest reply: Dec 27, 2010
Alone again
Posted Dec 22, 2010
How can someone who got a degree from Oxford can be such a moron? Did he fail to understand that I wanted him home at a reasonable time today? I did tell him, and was mighty pissed off when he suggested coming home for 7 or 8pm. Was he too stupid to realise that slight thaw + after dark drop in temperature = icy roads? Or does he just not want to spend *any* time *at all* with his family?
Discuss this Journal entry [9]
Latest reply: Dec 22, 2010
School dilemmas
Posted Oct 24, 2010
Am in the middle of the school selection process for t'Boy (and t'Other, by extension) and it is doing my head in. Choices are:
1) Catchment school - great space, can walk there, secular, new head who sounds really on the ball and is pulling the place out of special measures well. Recent inspection criticised them for not stretching bright kids - this is my main worry as t'Boy is now doing well with reading (at 3.5 years this is pretty amazing), can count to 100 and do simple addition and subtraction. He is trying to teach himself guitar and piano. If he gets bored he makes trouble and I don't want school to be that way for him. I could stay part time and just do school hours if they were here, and do stuff after school with them that isn't supplied by after school clubs. If we wanted to apply to grammar school next we'd have to coch them ourselves or pay for a tutor.
2) Private mixed nearby - utterly amazing. Smaller classes, great facilities, lovely atmosphere, good contacts, excellent chance of getting them into a good state secondary school next. 200k to get 2 boys to the start of secondary school, 400k to get them to a-level if we didn't get them into a preferred secondary. If we never buy anything new again and I go back full time once they are both there we could (just) do this. But I would have less time to spend with them, although more would be done by the school. Is religious, so they have to go to a service once a week, and have RE lessons. They don't learn about world religions in these classes, these are covered in PSE. The learning atmosphere was fabulous, they really applaud nd value achievement so nobody is bullied for being a 'swot'. The sports hall, swimming pool, grounds and other sporting facilities were out of this world. No spaces for next september, would have to start at state school (or other private) and swtich in year 2 or 3.
3) State out of catchment church school in the village. On paper a better school than 1). Nice atmosphere, not TOO churchy, good space, nice classrooms. Further than 1) to walk to but easily within bike distance. Doesn't have the same issue as 1) but we probably won't get in as we are the 7th level of familes who get a place - children from *much* further away whose parents go to church (or have faked it for the last year - I know two of these but I'm just not that much of a hypocrite) would get places above us even though the catchment area ends at the end of our road.
4) Private single-sex. Cheaper than 2) but not looked round yet. Amazing reports from the other parents I know who have looked (we're going i a couple of weeks) and I know some of the staff who've told me all about the facilities but as I've got two boys I want them to learn to get on with girls so single-sex is a big minus. Secular, a big plus.
5) State, lovely little school in distant village. Reasonable chance of getting in, but a massive pain to get to, only doable in a car and through horrible traffic.
Am tying myself in knots - I wish the private ones were totally out of my reach in a lot of ways! Not sure I know how to make this decision.
Discuss this Journal entry [103]
Latest reply: Oct 24, 2010
Adult male vs 3 year old.
Posted Oct 18, 2010
I have commented before how my husband has all the emotional intelligence of a plank, well this weekend he managed to do a lovely thing for me, then have it blown out of the water by my 3 year old 
On Friday, husband comes home from work (late) and brings me a lovely bunch of flowers. Wonderful! He hasn't done that for years (the flowers part, he is late every night). I asked husband why he got me flowers and he said "I was feeling kind". I took them (followed by t'Boy) into the kitchen to put them in water. I was chattering away to myself and said something about why did daddy get me flowers to which t'boy replied "Because you are the best mummy in the whole world" thus neatly stealing most of the kudos that should have been husbands for buying the flowers in the first place. Ahhhhhhhhh!
3 year old - 1, adult male - 0.
Discuss this Journal entry [6]
Latest reply: Oct 18, 2010
Poorly parent
Posted Aug 20, 2010
My dad is back in hospital. It is an open-ended stay so we don't know how long he will be there for. He saw the renal consultant yesterday lunchtime who said he was going to have to go into hospital and begin dialysis immediately - his kidneys have totally given up the ghost now. He was hoping to do the kind of dialysis you can do at home via a tube into your stomach, but after yesterday he now knows this will not be possible and he will have to go into hospital 3 times a week for 4 hour sessions. It takes 1.5 hours to get there so he'll be doing essentially a full day 3 times a week. He is quite down about this but I pointed out that he isn't losing 3 days a week - he'll feel so much better (I hope) he will *gain* the other four days.
There is another problem with his stomach - he is swollen and they don't know why. He is also still bleeding internally somewhere so needs blood transfusions, and has picked up a chest infection which has caused him to cough so much he has given himself a hernia.
They called yesterday at 7pm and said a bed had come free - they were a bit cross with him that he said he couldn't get there until 9pm but he pointed out the travelling time. He felt so rushed and panicked that he didn't think through the options to get there - mum couldn't drive him because her eyes are not up to driving in the rain and dark on the way home - she rang me in tears that she'd had to let him drive himself.
I am so worried about him, but it sounds like this time they have admitted him to a ward in the renal unit, not the EMU hellhole he was in in stoke mandeville last time, with a mind to sort out all the various problems properly in one place, not just patch up whichever bit has fallen off and send him home.
He definitely won't be coming on the holiday we had booked in september. Because he is doing haemodialysis he won't be able to do the replacement cruise in the Med they had booked for their anniversay as a replacement for the one they had to cancel around south america.
Poor old dad. But I hope they can fix things now he has gone in.
Discuss this Journal entry [133]
Latest reply: Aug 20, 2010
Back to kelli - ran 2 miles a day for 2012, aiming for the same for 2013's Personal Space Home
kelli - ran 2 miles a day for 2012, aiming for the same for 2013
Researcher U181082
Write an Entry
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."