Practical it may be, but trendy, it is not……

It was proper cold yesterday morning, although not as cold as England. I hate the cold. I spend my whole time looking stupid (too many clothes, hardly able to move arms, they stick out at my sides, and I look a total wally), shivering and dreaming about summer……….Alex is worrying he will get trench foot from doing his deliveries in the rain…..Yesterday he had holes in his socks, AND the plastic bags on his feet! We have a visitor who comes round at 7pm, perfect, wind down kids bedtime time. But it’s fine, it was brilliant to see our friend, even more so as he is self contained, no not well mannered, he has a caravan (I may rob him in the night and make my escape). As I get the kids upstairs, and finally settled, a huge thunder and lightening storm hits, and the electricity cuts. This sends the kids into panic, and they all start up again, tears, hysterics, the works ‘we can’t see, we are TERRIFIED mummy’. I fumble around in the dark, falling over things, rummaging frantically trying to find where I had ‘tidied’ the candles and the matches. Finally after a lOOOOOOONG ten minutes, bedlam upstairs with panic-stricken kids, believe me even 3 seconds is long, matches and a few stubby candles are found. I feel like the lady with the lamp as I light up the house -no, not set it alight- and walk upstairs (never run with fire, or is that scissors?), to calm the kids I have to put a lantern on the landing, instructing them to go nowhere near it etc etc how important it is not to, how dangerous etc etc, and there is also an alarm on it so mummy WILL know if you’ve gone near it and so forth (it was out of reach, but you never know). I go back downstairs to cook for the guest. Forgetting there is no electricity, bollocks, no dinner tonight. Then he comes in through the front door with one of those head torches on……..my dad has a head torch, the day I have a head torch is the day I know that I finally do not care ANYMORE what others think of me….! Sorry dad…! Practical it may be, but trendy, it is not……it turns out it was his caravan that blew the electrics, and I suddenly smell burning hair…….I hurl myself up the stairs like a bat out of hell (you should have seen me….) fearing the worst, something had actually caught alight, I run up shouting to the kids to check their heads, to make sure their hair is not on fire…! Thankfully, it just turned out to be a weird smell, happens frequently in this house, and all is well.

The kids got the school bus home yesterday, I was out and about doing more French paper work and such like, if they get the bus it gives me ½, an extremely valuable, hour’s worth of time. Much needed at times. The hail is frantic and the size of small snowballs, (it hurts like hell, seriously) so I decide to drive to where the bus stops- the bottom of my garden, just in front of our gate! I throw the little 2 in the car, and back out of the drive trying not to take out the chickens who are seeking shelter, and lost their home, again. I wait at the bottom of the drive, and get out to collect the kids, bundle them in the car with them asking why I had driven 4 yards to pick them up………They’ll understand one day. Job done for one day, well in some ways. I have 7 loads of washing to do tomorrow, the kids asked me to make their beds smell nice, cheeky buggars, I do it  every weekend anyway……..expectations, tut…!