Our marriage has got to this, has it?

As I am sat here, the dog is licking my leg, I kick out, and hear Alex say ‘Hey, what did u do that for??’ It was him in fact, affectionately stroking my leg!! Sorry babes, our marriage has got to this, has it? An affectionate leg stroke, and I think you’re the dog…Still, he’ll get over it!

My parents-in-law have been down for a few nights, they stay 6 months a year 5 hours north from us, and 6 in England. Sheep is still spilling out of the freezer, thanks to the Bus Driver’s generosity (and his best mate being a slaughterer (of animals, I may add)) we are still inundated with frozen sheep. So my M-in-law worked like a Trojan, whilst I flapped and faffed, and she cooked a roast for all the hungry mouths, I made some chick pea burgers for me, and when we ate, I was Billy no mates (poor Billy, always friendless, didn’t he even have one special one??) on the end of the table on the ‘extra’ chair from outside, bit lower than everyone else making mmmmmm slurpy noises, and the rest of the gang sneering at me and necking down meat like Henry the VIII th. But I well enjoyed mine, with a clear karma ;) … Yesterday I had to go and look at washing machines, well, to be fair, wouldn’t you? If you had been hand washing in the bath all your SIX people’s worth of get-up. I did initial research into mangles….Until I realised Enough, is ENOUGH! Especially as this is now 2 months on…I am a broken woman. An achy handed-as I reckon that’s what’s causing my hand pain, back ached up, broken woman and the fact I have permanent raisin fingers and smell pretty fresh, round the hand area, wouldn’t bother with the areas not soaked in wash powder too particularly. This is, after all the 21^st century, is it not? Anyway, M-in-law came with, as did the waifs and strays, although the car was chickenless on entry, so that was a positive start. After the positive start, my M-in’law starts not looking quite so relaxed as the journey goes on, at one point I over take on a single white line, she points this out white knuckled, gripping on to the side of the seat, like I am doing 897 thousand mph, or something, and gasps this observation out at me. I point out I had actually forgotten that rule, so therefore it didn’t count…Any way, the trip was a vague success, and within a month or so, I should have a washing machine! YES!

This week, I have been ‘centering’ myself regular *dives into hasty explanation before she gets judged* All down to the fact summer has hit, and as ’the’ season here now in France, has hit, the world, his wife, various mistresses, kids, a  9 inch badger, a healthy donkey (yeah, lucky bastard, he has a donkey) some pygmy sheep and herds and herds of squirrels (you should see them), a shocking entourage really, well, they're all here. It's madness, the roads are chocca, and my blood has been close to boiling point all week. My road rage is threatening a 'comeback' (read here), so I am having to take myself in hand, hence the ‘centering’, you see, I am not weird at all… Well, when the kids, at non driving age (far from it) are commenting on others' driving skills, I realise, they have informed opinions on non use of indicators, over taking in not the right area of road, cutting up, in wrong lane....you begin to get the picture. I commentate, quite obviously, talking to yourself always comes back to bite you in the ass. They have all listened and learne. Here comes my new idea for training/mindwashing kids…They have evidently been listening to my ramblings so much, they have all learned to drive accurately, well verbally at least, and that’s important. So, what I propose is to record all the ru;es and things I want them to absorb, and instead of listening to my own voice, like a fooking broken record, I shall record it all, and have it  on repeat in the car. This way, they SHALL listen and learn! Form the very, very wisest, coz mummy ALWAYS knows best. Shhhhhhhhhhhhh.

My gorgeous Lola as a pirate for the school end of year spectacle...

Before I leave (I’m going nowhere, that sounded way more dramatic than it needed to) I’ll say, when I stop typing, instead. The kids love their bedtime stories, they often ask me to make up a story. The ‘can you tell us a strory from your head’ request targets red alert, dread signals in my brain. A story out of MY head?? Well, OK….I am SO rubbish! I rip off fairy tales regularly, changing them up a bit. The stories I tell them often include a lovely village where the residents are lovely too, along comes a stranger to live there, all of a sudden, something keeps going missing, it was everyone’s ‘niceness’ the other day, and they were all being rude to each other and mean, 4 kids were unaffected, there names were, yep you guessed it, Monty, Lola, Mitzi and Esmie, they set off on an adventure to find out what’s going on-they find the culprit! A machine in the cellar of the new dude’s house, they manage to sneak in shut it off, and all  is well, remarkably! So there we go. I am scarring my kids through story telling, but they insist almost every night I tell them one-I thought practice made perfick? Apparently not.

Night folks! See you tomorrow.

Tamsyn x