Challenging?

Well what a long while it’s been since I was here. I am now on the path to recuperating after months of bad health, and now slowly, slowly catching my monkey, as my old English teacher Mrs. Gadd would have said. It’s a funny one ‘well-being’ and I have realised that you can have every goal/best intentions/aspirations in the world. But unless you look after this body you have, in this world, this life…you are going nowhere fast. A vessel it may be, but unless it works right, you are going to be stuck in more ways than one…so from here on in, a pledge to looking after me a bit better, taking stock, pushing forward, few other ‘grit your teeth and bare it’ clichés, and I’m onwards and upwards.

So what on earth have I been up to? Now let me think…The 2 week February half term has been and gone *stops rocking in corner and blinks at day light, and air punches hard*, in a whirlwind of rain, penned in kids and appliances that simplify your life committing suicide rather than doing their one job that they are required to do in the house. My dishwasher I have had  for but 6 months, and it has given up the ghost. Shameful sight, sitting in the corner leaking a bit of dirty water every now and then, PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER DUDE! Suffice to say I have been at the effng kitchen sink for bleedin’ hours. Not that I would mind that much, but the washing machine having a nervous break down and then the drains going on strike and sending everything drainable in the house back up and out into the garage, flooding it, meant sheer bedlam struck this half term. I would have been so crap in the olden days, no electrical appliances, AS IF! I was up at the nearest laundrettes (2o minutes away) every other day. The drains blocking solidly for 5 days before help came, meant we could not wash either. The dude in the laundrettes pulled the kids out of the washing machine, telling me apparently we’re not allowed to do a quick ‘spin ‘n dry’ on anything living, even if the powder is hypo-allergenic. So that one was out. It’s funny the things you take for granted, and you never realise until their taken away or give up on you, so I was obviously having a brief ‘reminder’ period this half term. I APPRECIATE YOU!! Really I do, live again white goods, pleeeeasseee, pretty pllleeeaseee! The timing of their break downs was obviously impeccable too, rainy 2 week half term, ill mummy-about as well timed as walking into the lift and traveling to the top floor after a hot unwashed fishmonger person had just wheeled out his leftovers...proper rank, truly bad timing. So just to jazz this joyful half term up a bit, I was humbled everytime I dared venture out in public with 4 kids who had not had a bath for 5 days. I was dragging round urchins, nothing more, nothing less. If this is not already enough, my kettle got to the point where it was giving me teeny and sometimes more advanced, potentially more serious/even life threatening electric shocks, so it was time for that to go too. It was a bit of a sad moment, 18 months I have managed to keep that kettle. A world record in my house. But it was really time, before it killed me. It’s so impractical with no kettle, like the old days, boiling pans on the hob, then scalding yourself and thus being the victim of ‘desperate for a cup of tea, like you have never before even experienced in your life and now I just can’t negotiate the huge open pan of boiling water into the tea pot as my hand is wobbling under the strain of the weight of it’ self-inflicted third degree burns. Challenging.

So today, my unadulterated and never floundering thanks goes out to Mr/Mrs (actually it probably was a man who invented it, just to shut his misses up whinging about the washing all the time!) Washingmachine, for their thoughtful invention, to Mr/Mrs Dishawasher for their support and I hope that finding out the receipt for the dishwasher does not prove to go on too much longer, 10 days and counting so far, or I will be joining my dishwasher, sat in the corner dribbling out dirty water…I am chuffed to be blogging again, and hope my health stays tip top, and my electrical appliances stay a bit longer in this world this time around. See ya soon!