Woohoo!
Phew, things are a little calmer than I expected, so I can tell the story of my week...
Monday: Felix's last day of summer hols. We plan to go to Monkeyland, which we both think sounds wonderful.
And then we find ourselves offering to take two more children as a favour to a friend... Monkeyland with two 5-yr-olds, a 6-yr-old and me! Woohoo!
And then the car breaks down... so we go to the Manchester Museum instead. On a bus. Stopping via a shop (because the other two children have crisps in their packed lunch and we don't have any) and a post box (to post the cheque to the yoga people because I'm not preggers after all, and can only go to Spain if I'm not). In the shop I am Generous Mummy and say they can all have one lollipop each. They choose fizz bombs instead, which go straight in their mouths before we even leave the shop... and straight out again. Three little sad faces. "I don't like it." "Neither do I." "I don't either, Mummy!"
"No, wait..."
Too late. Three very sticky hands, carrying three very sticky half-sucked sweets.
And although this is a shop which sells nappies and bog roll, it doesn't sell wet wipes.
And on to the post box, me no longer exhorting everyone to carefully hold hands. I'm not going anywhere near their bloody hands.
There are no bins. They are still holding blobs of stickiness, now passed cheerfully from hand to hand.
We go home again. We get wet wipes. We set out again. We have a nice day at the museum, and arrive home exhausted.
In the evening, I spend hours on the internet trying to do impossible price comparisons on complicatedly-differently-priced airline websites, finally managing to buy tickets for a flight to Spain, as well as a train to London and a Eurostar to Paris in October, when we are going on My Most Expensive Impulse Buy Ever - a trip to see Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's Monkey thing at a posh Parisian theatre.
I realise my passport is about to expire in seven days' time. I ring the passport office and arrange to go to Liverpool first thing in the morning, buy yet more train tickets and count up the cost of the money which I don't have and yet still (oh fuck it, what are redundancy payments for after all?) am about to spend.
Liverpool is beautiful.
The passport office is terrifyingly efficient and organised. I think I must be in the wrong country.
I lose a screw from my glasses.
I find a friendly optician who mends them for me on the spot (hurrah for Liverpool!) and incidentally, seeing as it seems to be the day for helpful professionals, a jeweller who kindly removes the ring which has become welded to my finger due to my finger putting weight on. I admire the pretty indent left in my finger-fat.
On the train home I try yet again to work out how the hell I am going to make very-quick changes to my book so that it is The Best Book Ever instead of just A Good Book.
I come back to Manchester, take broken cars to garages, walk dogs, pick child up from school, go to garage again, take child swimming, swear at The Slowest Bus in the Whole History Of Buses ever, put child to bed, bang head against book once again, go to sleep, bang head against book, have enormous long phone conversation with MY LITERARY AGENT, bounce about the house excitedly, and now here I am.
Hmmm, time for another post methinks.
___
Monday: Felix's last day of summer hols. We plan to go to Monkeyland, which we both think sounds wonderful.
And then we find ourselves offering to take two more children as a favour to a friend... Monkeyland with two 5-yr-olds, a 6-yr-old and me! Woohoo!
And then the car breaks down... so we go to the Manchester Museum instead. On a bus. Stopping via a shop (because the other two children have crisps in their packed lunch and we don't have any) and a post box (to post the cheque to the yoga people because I'm not preggers after all, and can only go to Spain if I'm not). In the shop I am Generous Mummy and say they can all have one lollipop each. They choose fizz bombs instead, which go straight in their mouths before we even leave the shop... and straight out again. Three little sad faces. "I don't like it." "Neither do I." "I don't either, Mummy!"
"No, wait..."
Too late. Three very sticky hands, carrying three very sticky half-sucked sweets.
And although this is a shop which sells nappies and bog roll, it doesn't sell wet wipes.
And on to the post box, me no longer exhorting everyone to carefully hold hands. I'm not going anywhere near their bloody hands.
There are no bins. They are still holding blobs of stickiness, now passed cheerfully from hand to hand.
We go home again. We get wet wipes. We set out again. We have a nice day at the museum, and arrive home exhausted.
In the evening, I spend hours on the internet trying to do impossible price comparisons on complicatedly-differently-priced airline websites, finally managing to buy tickets for a flight to Spain, as well as a train to London and a Eurostar to Paris in October, when we are going on My Most Expensive Impulse Buy Ever - a trip to see Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's Monkey thing at a posh Parisian theatre.
I realise my passport is about to expire in seven days' time. I ring the passport office and arrange to go to Liverpool first thing in the morning, buy yet more train tickets and count up the cost of the money which I don't have and yet still (oh fuck it, what are redundancy payments for after all?) am about to spend.
Liverpool is beautiful.
The passport office is terrifyingly efficient and organised. I think I must be in the wrong country.
I lose a screw from my glasses.
I find a friendly optician who mends them for me on the spot (hurrah for Liverpool!) and incidentally, seeing as it seems to be the day for helpful professionals, a jeweller who kindly removes the ring which has become welded to my finger due to my finger putting weight on. I admire the pretty indent left in my finger-fat.
On the train home I try yet again to work out how the hell I am going to make very-quick changes to my book so that it is The Best Book Ever instead of just A Good Book.
I come back to Manchester, take broken cars to garages, walk dogs, pick child up from school, go to garage again, take child swimming, swear at The Slowest Bus in the Whole History Of Buses ever, put child to bed, bang head against book once again, go to sleep, bang head against book, have enormous long phone conversation with MY LITERARY AGENT, bounce about the house excitedly, and now here I am.
Hmmm, time for another post methinks.
___
Labels: Cheese Sandwich
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home