Journal Entries
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A New Toy
Posted Apr 28, 2005
I’m thrilled to bits.
I have two music classes on Thursdays, my clarinet lesson at 2.30 pm, and a recorder one at 5.30 pm. The boys are at school for the former, and Cellofreak is at home to babysit for the latter, but as Bulb 2, OH and Cellofreak also have music lessons at different times in the early evening on this day, it means mealtimes are a bit of a nightmare. Not to mention homework supervision. So Thursdays for me are a two-edged sword really, a double dose of private pleasure offset by a logistical nightmare re family life.
Anyway. Both my lessons went very well today, as I’ve been practising diligently – and I’ve finally managed to get that recorder exam piece embedded in my brain! I’d just got really stuck into my recorder lesson when Cellofreak’s flute teacher entered the classroom. We know him quite well, as apart from teaching Cellofreak for years, he helped organise a cello tour in Poland we went on a couple of years ago. An excellent teacher and wonderful flautist, he’s also very involved in actually working with instruments, repairing them and so on – e.g he built the most beautiful little spinet from scratch. He brought a 20-year-old recorder of his for my teacher to look at; he’d restored it completely, and was looking for a buyer. It’s a tiny little sopranino in F, and as I still have most of my birthday money left (I’m refusing to buy any new clothes until I reach Target Weight)...
It’s a lovely little thing, and as the fingering is the same as for the treble recorder, I can play it – but even my small hands have a job to fit! If I squeeze my fingers tightly together, I can just about make it. An aquired taste though, as it’s so highly pitched; it’s not used on its own that much, more to add a little ‘something’ to (recorder) ensembles. I’ve got it with me now, on trial, though I’ll have to ‘break it in’ gently to begin with as it was comprehensively overhauled. I’ll have to treat it just as if it were a new one in fact. I know what to do, as I had to do the same for my new descant recorder a couple of years ago. You start by playing max. 5 minutes a day for the first week, then 10 mins for the next, then 15 mins after that, and so on until you can play an hour non-stop. New it would be worth about 300 € - it’s mine for a tenth of the price if I want it.
I’ve been gloating over it for most of the evening, and I do. I must say, it beats getting depressed by all the shenanigans in Mustardland - the least said about that the better, other than to hope that matters will be resolved pretty soon.
However, I’d best stop going into raptures now and try and get some sleep after posting this, we’ve got the most manic weekend ahead. Basketbal tournaments + boys’ school fête + family time = kiddies disco on Friday evening; basketball on Saturday morning (8.00 am – eek); school fête with show, games and BBQ on Saturday afternoon and evening; basketball on Sunday morning (8.00 am – double eek!); M-i-L for dinner on Sunday evening. Monday is a holiday for the boys, so little respite there. I think I’ll rent a load of videos and we’ll all slob out in front of the telly.... 
Katy 
Discuss this Journal entry [5]
Latest reply: Apr 28, 2005
Countdown
Posted Apr 25, 2005
There was a parents – teachers meeting for Bulb 1’s class tonight, to discuss their secondary school education. It seems incredible that yet another school year is drawing to an end, with two very busy months ahead and then the long 9-week stretch of the Summer holidays. Amazing, it’s hard to believe he’ll be 12 in July (though puberty has arrived in a big way already, it seems). It’s at pivotal moments like these that I wonder what his birth mother is doing. Does she stop to think of him at all? Wonder where he is, what he’s doing, what he looks like? It’s around this time 12 years ago that we heard that we’d finally reached the top of the adoption list (we were couple no. 13 out of a list of 20), after 4 long gruelling years waiting.
And now he’s about to spread his wings a little further, and go off to the ‘big school’. He has chosen, with our and his teacher’s blessing, to go to a large technical college 2 villages away from us. His quick intelligence cannot compete with the learning difficulties caused by his ADHD, and ‘ordinary’ secondary school would end in disaster for him. He’s thrilled to be going there, and we’ve heard excellent reports from it too, from people whose children have been pupils there. It’s huge though, we drove over for a look last week, and the open day next month can’t come fast enough for Bulb 1! He’s still undecided what he would like to do later on, so I’m going to get a special questionnaire for him to fill in, to see where his aptitudes and interests really lie. The only thing we want is for him to be happy – and if people want to be snotty about the choice of school for him, it’s their problem, not ours. So much stupid snobbery in this. After all, as I point out to anyone nosey-parkering, look at OH and me: he left school at 16 with no qualifications, I got a University degree – yet he’s the one with the high-powered job, while I’m ‘just a housewife and Mum’! It’s stunning, the way people don’t mind their own business. Lynda Snell also ran.
Sour note of the day: the boys’ school was broken into at the weekend, and several classrooms trashed. Bulb 1 lost his precious ball-point pen... the boys turned up at lunchtime full of it all, not to mention upset. It was pure mindless vandalism, as several valuable items in the classrooms were left untouched. What drives people to behave in this way, with no regard for the pain of others whatsoever? Why? Why break into a classroom, and rip up the work that a child has put much time and effort into? What possible kick can you get out of writing scurrilous filth on the blackboard, and tipping all the desks over so their contents spread out all over the floor, and then trample over them? The police suspect some local youths in their early teens. Heaven help society when they grow up. They’ll probably end up as trolls on an MB somewhere...
Discuss this Journal entry [12]
Latest reply: Apr 25, 2005
Circle of Life
Posted Apr 21, 2005
I was ¼ watching 'The Lion King' with the Bulbs this late afternoon while ironing, and, remembering the fatherly chat the King Mufasa has with his son Simba re the place of every creature in the grand scheme of things, would dearly love to ask His Lioness what The Mosquito is for. There’s one in our room right now, hence me sitting typing this in the middle of the night, wide awake again. OH is oblivious to the high-pitched whine of this miniscule fighter plane; unfairly, he never gets stung either. The beast got me several times before waking me up irrevocably, and my face now looks as if I’m in my teens having an imminent attack of the zits. Sigh.
Looking on the bright side, it’s a definite sign that Spring is here, it always is. Our huge oak tree at the back is slowly unfurling its leaves, while the 2 equally large red beeches, one in front, the other in the back next to the oak, are full of buds. Home to a pair of evil magpies, scores of cute little bats, and the said dreaded mosquito, swarms of the bluddy things.
What a difference the sun made though, after the dreary cold and rain recently. The day dawned with a thin mist veiling a beautiful clear blue sky; I had a line of washing flapping cheerfully in the breeze by 9 this morning, and another after lunch. There’s nothing quite like the smell of fresh laundry which has dried outdoors.
My recorder rehearsal with the harpsichord went very well, apart from the piece I need to know by heart. Concentration shot to pieces by the presence of the accompaniment, so I floundered around helplessly, trying to remember the melody line. Grrrrrr. Both my recorder and the harpsichord teacher are lovely ladies though, and I get on well with them – they were most encouraging, and I think I’ll be reasonably ok on the big day. If I can get my hands to stop shaking from nerves that is... Memo to self: this is a hobby, something you do for fun, the exam doesn’t matter a row of beans...
Talking of exams, not to mention circles, Cellofreak is getting very nervous as her University ones loom ever closer. At the moment she’s struggling with a book I had to do a quarter of a century ago too, Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, and is enjoying it in equal measure. Not. Am unable to offer any constructive advice whatsoever, as my abiding memory of the book is sheer relief that I managed to finish it at all. One of her English profs, who was a junior assistant when I was a student there, passed on his regards once more, and urged me to pop in for a hello if I could. He’s retiring this Summer, and would like to see me again before he leaves. Lovely as it is to be remembered like this, I now feel positively ancient... and on that note, will return and try and get some beauty sleep, else the bags under my eyes will reach my chin. I wonder, if I hide under the duvet, but leave my hand dangling out as a sacrifice, perhaps the winged satyr will drink his fill of my blood asap and then leave me alone for the rest of the night.
Katy
Discuss this Journal entry [6]
Latest reply: Apr 21, 2005
Half-full glasses
Posted Apr 20, 2005
I wrote a reply to Bette in The Bull in ML just now, but then cancelled it before posting. It's just too public over there, but then that's daft, because this place is no less so. Not really. Well, not yet. I've seen you can remove these entries, and if after the change I lose my nerve about them being here, I can always send 'em off into cyber space. Still, I like reading these Journals in here, and there's something very soothing about writing them too, as if you're tidying up the living-room in your mind before settling down to sleep. Funny really, because I've never ever felt tempted to keep a diary before.
Sometimes I really think I'm the world's biggest pessimist, crossing bridges before they even appear on the horizon. But then, I've learnt that tempting though it is at the time, collapsing in a puddle of despair does nothing to solve the problem on hand, makes me feel terrible, and look worse. I then also tend to turn to all things sweet and fattening, and nearing the end of the Battle Against The Bulge (only 1/2 kg to go to reach target weight!!!), it'd be a crying shame to undo 2 years hard slog. No, much better to confront things head on, even if the bang gives me a corker of a headache for a good while afterwards.
Consultation with my siblings-in-law today revealed what I've suspected for a while: my MiL can no longer cope. She's nearing 80, and though fiercely independent, has started to accept that she can't manage anymore for a number of things. Siblings-in-law are doing their best, but are spread far and wide (hah!) over Belgium. We live 15 mins away, and as OH works 13-14 hours a day... See, I wasn't being previous all those weeks ago when I started working out new routines so I can fit in a morning or two to go over and help with shopping and chores, etc., was I? Dunno how I'll manage really, but bridges were made to be anticipated and crossed. And I love her to pieces, so, no contest really.
So, what happened today that made me feel really good? Well, apart from the meeting at Weightwatchers in the morning, that is! For the rest it was one of those all too frequent days when you seem to be rushing around doing 50 things at once, yet at the end of the day there's little to show for it. Mind you, if I'm honest, I would have achieved a leeeetle bit more if I hadn't thrown in the towel completely this afternoon, and wasted valuable time faffing around in ML... "Only a messageboard", eh? Nope, my safety valve.
Very happy moment: I'm practising diligently for my public exam for the recorder on the 26th May, and am finally getting to grips with the (small) piece I need to play off by heart. Been playing it for weeks and weeks now and have only just managed to play it without looking at the score - Cellofreak could play it on both her cello AND her flute after hearing me practice twice. Snot fair. In the nick of time too - all the pieces will be accompanied by the harpsichord, and I'm having a first rehearsal tomorrow afternoon at 16.30. Just after my clarinet lesson - yikes! But there was no other time available. I'll just have to remember not to blow as hard, and not get in a muddle with the different fingerings. The boys will moan at having to stay at school for an hour longer, but hard cheese. The hours I spend being their taxi-driver...
Oh heavens, look at the time. Now I've tidied up my brain, I'd better do the same to the kitchen, then scuttle off to bed. Katy
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Apr 20, 2005
Insomnia
Posted Apr 19, 2005
Insomnia
This Journal lark is very tempting, I must say, especially when you’re having another sleepless night.... well, it beats tossing and turning and getting into a state because you’re tired and yet sleep won’t come. I can already feel myself getting drowsy, so I’ll sign off soon; I can see this place is going to be a godsend from this pov.
I don't think I'll do the logging on a daily basis though. The thing is, on the one hand the day-to-day routines of my life are so very repetitive and dull; Bulb 1's ADHD means that our days are controlled rigidly by the clock, as that makes a world of difference in how he copes - not very good material for a log! Yet on the other hand, there's a lot going on around me too in other respects, not just my own immediate family, and I do worry that, beguiled by the private 'feel' of these Spaces, I might be tempted to confide too much and regret it afterwards.
I'm also very bothered by the software system, first and foremost the way of keeping track of posts. I've noticed that this Journal is now on my Own Space on POV... one click and anyone there is free to rummage. I’ve hardly posted there at all, so chances that anyone will come across my name are slim, and even then they’re probably not going to bother to nose around in the Own Space ‘behind’ my name. They might though – I know I do!!! It takes one to know one.
Hum. I don’t particularly mind if they do, as I try to only post what I’m prepared to stand by; and the sheer length of the first journal will probably put the casual passerby off!
Oh dear. If I unsubscribe to these conversations, I won’t be able to keep track of replies – but when the new ML is ‘hooked up’, I really don’t like to think that my yadderings on here might be taken up and become the subject of ridicule over there. The present trollish shenanigans do NOT inspire confidence in this respect, particularly as the person concerned seems to be playing a cat-and-mouse game IRL as well as on the MB.
Well, we’ll see. But for now, back to bed for a few more hours sleep before another busy day. I’ve got lots of ironing waiting for me, so plenty for my hands to do while I catch up with the Archers – the omnibus as well as as many episodes of the week before that I can still listen to by clicking on each day in turn. I’ve irrevocably missed The Birth of George though... Tut tut, I’m slacking seriously for an Archers Addict. I try to be around as much as possible on Tuesdays, because it’s the MFC too. Yay!
Good night – or should that be good morning?!? Katy
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Apr 19, 2005
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Katy Tulip
Researcher U238199
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