A round up of last week’s happenings:

Monday:

Twas a happily uneventful start to the week, bar a very rude woman on the phone at work who asked me if I understood her?!  Now listen lady, this English girl may have an accent, but I can surprisingly still understand yours, even if the other way round seems to be proving slightly more difficult.  It’s funny how growing up, I was completely unaware that we even had an accent in Nottingham and, compared to others around the U.K. I still think it’s rather tame!  I bit my lip, took a deep breath and calmly repeated her message back to her, while growling on the inside!?

Then I had the joy of the dentist! My dentist is actually from London, so commiserated with me when I almost fainted at the prices the first time I went in.  I had heard it was extortionate, so had actually put it off since emigrating, but I knew I needed to go.  I recalled when they put the prices up to £16 in the U.K. for a checkup and everyone was outraged (my Dad says it’s £18 now!), well multiply that figure by around 10 and that’s how much it will cost you in dollars with a clean and polish!  Come back NHS dentist, all is forgiven, I thought!  But then my new dentist showed me the extent of damage to my teeth and it turns out my NHS dentist giving my mouth a once over and saying everything was fine, might not have been as thorough as I needed.  When he said I would need a filling, I could have cried.  Making it this far through adulthood without a filling was one of my proudest achievements!  I could have wept buckets when I saw how much a filling cost though!  We’ve pencilled it in for a few months time, to give me chance to: a)gather the funds, b)win big on a scratchcard, c)come to terms with spending a whole week’s wages on one tooth!? Today was just a clean and polish, so I just concentrated on trying not to gag as two people shoved things in my mouth!  Does anyone else get the urge to lick the polishing tool, or is it just me?!  Don’t do it, it burns!?

Tuesday:

Stop press: we had a day with no plans!  It was absolutely amazing! I got to spend some quality time with my little girl with no rushing, arguing, tears or stress!  It made me realise that most of our cross words and moaning arise because of our hectic schedule and always bouncing from one thing to another.  Today was pleasant and chilled.  We read, did puzzles, wrote a card to a friend, drew pictures, painted, played, I even did some French with her and she loved it!  

“This is better than school, Mummy! I don’t want to go to prep next year.  Can you be my teacher instead?!” 

 Um…nope!  As much as I thoroughly enjoyed today, we are too similar in personality for me to ever consider home schooling her!  She would drive me crazy, I am sure!  Plus, how disciplined must you have to be to home school your kids?! I can teach high school kids at my place of work, but to do that at home would be really tough, I think.  It would just be too tempting to start doing other things and then your husband would still come home and say something really helpful, like “What have you been doing all day?! The living room’s still a mess!” or other annoying words to that effect!?

I had a burning craving for pork scratchings tonight.  So much so, that I drove to the shop under the guise of a dinner ingredient, bought a packet and crammed them into my face in the car park! I disposed of the packet secretly and returned home without being discovered.  Stealthy secret eater or what?! Is that worrying?!?

Wednesday:

Work is ever so slightly stressful at the minute, as next to none of my students seem to want to do very much work, which is turning me into a right naggy old cow in every aspect of my life now and meaning I am flat out getting anywhere near my targets – thanks for that, students!  Thankfully, my work colleagues are a funny bunch on the whole, who keep me smiling.  I was about to go on a lunch run with my colleague’s bank card and we were all standing having a natter, when suddenly it had disappeared out of my hand and was nowhere to be seen! Well, my heart started pounding as I was searching around my feet, repeating “It was just in my hand!  It can’t have gone far!”  I stood up to see Denise and Diana (yes ladies, you are named and shamed!) killing themselves laughing!  Denise had sneakily extracted the card out of my hand while I was talking and passed it to Diana, who had thrown it across the room!  She would make a great pickpocket!  But I really don’t need any more grey hairs, thanks all the same!

Mia was sent a parcel from my friend in England containing fizzy cola bottles.  Sadly, for her, and happily for me, she doesn’t like them, so I ate the entire packet while watching TV! Hmmm…

Thursday:

Due to my erratic food behaviour over the last couple of days, I got up and peed on a stick…negative.  I’m just strange then, not pregnant! ?

Today was Ian’s appointment at the fertility clinic to finally drop off his sample for analysis and, as we have now become accustomed, it wasn’t without incident!  Firstly, we had a palaver about him having to leave work to go and do it, as he is one of the only members of the crew with a license to drive the work truck.  Therefore he was planning on driving the whole crew there and parking the truck outside while he went in to do his business, like some weird Council tree crew cheerleading team!!!  Luckily his boss let him take another vehicle in addition, so that unsettling scenario didn’t have to play out!  I did, however, receive a phone call from grumpy husband, saying that the clinic were trying to charge him $500! “To drop off a sample?! Are you kidding me?!”  Unfortunately, he wasn’t.  Cue multiple phone calls between myself and our clinic in Brisbane, them and the clinic in Toowoomba and me relating the responses to Ian, and we managed to drop it down to $140 for the analysis, which still seemed a little pricey, but I guess these things are.  Needless to say, after all the fuss we’ve had over a simple sample, we will happily make the 3 hour round trip to Brisbane in the future and cut out faff of the Toowoomba clinic!

Anyway, husband was possibly the grumpiest he has ever been following this experience.  Apparently the “wank room” (technical term!) was in the basement behind a car park, with no lock on the door, and a security camera staring at him!  Not exactly conducive to putting you in the mood or at ease!  “I’m going to the yard for some beers after work” he stated moodily.  “Okay, but don’t go overboard because we’ll be starting next week.” I said.  Well, it was like a volcano erupting as he went on a massive rant about how he hadn’t had a drink for three weeks, or a smoke, and now he’d had to have a Tommy Tank in that room and pay a fortune for it…so it possibly wasn’t the best time to remind him of the tequila shots on the Coast, or the State of Origin beers, but I’m not one to let false information pass me by.  “I’m a grown adult and if I want to go for a drink, I’ll go for a drink!”  Then he hung up on me.  So, trying for a baby is going swimmingly at present!  No extra pressure and getting on like a house on fire!?

He did, however,  bring rum cans home to share and they went down way too easily for a Thursday night.  Ian went to bed and I watched TV and carried on drinking and before I knew it…packet was finished and it was 2am!?

Friday:

Ouch!? Ironically, after me warning Ian not to drink too much, I had promptly drank too much!  I also had to be up and out: playgroup had a pyjama day to raise money for foster kids and Mia had crazy hair day at kindy.  Obviously she chose this morning to sleep in until 8am and be difficult to get ready, so I let her loose with some hair chalk and bundled us into the car.   Unfortunately for me, they have started taking the kindy class to the school library on a Friday morning, so as we chased after the class, I was getting more than a few sympathetic looks!  “Pyjama day at playgroup!” I sang out to anyone and everyone, as way of explanation, as they all clearly thought I was having a really bad morning dashing about in my pyjamas!?

Pyjamas + crazy hair + running late = sympathetic looks for the Mum who can’t get her shit together!?

I went home and got changed before heading into town for lunch with a friend and a few appointments.  I’m not quite brave enough to wear my PJs that far in public yet!  I had a beauty appointment at my friend’s home salon later and I knocked and let myself in as I usually do.  Her dogs were there, but they know me so didn’t bark, but she was nowhere to be seen! I sat there for a few minutes and then thought I had better message her.  No answer.  I decided to give it ten minutes and then leave.  Then I heard the back door go and walked through to say hi, scaring the absolute crap out of her boyfriend who had come in to see me standing there!  It turned out that she was at her other job, so I’m not quite sure what happened to my appointment, but her boyfriend’s heart health appears to be sound!?

I went to pick Mia up from kindy and she seems to have adopted the role of class clown, walking into doors and saying “who put that there?” as an example, just to get the laugh!? Even the teachers were laughing and saying “She’s so funny!” so I felt a bit mean saying “Don’t encourage her!”, but seriously, she needs none!  We then completed the nightly ritual of walking round the entire centre finding her belongings, which was a little like a treasure hunt, except our treasure was dirty laundry!?

We arrived home to two strange items of mail: the first from HMRC (U.K. tax), which was my code to complete my online tax return, which last time had arrived with one day until expiry, then I had forgotten my password and been locked out of my account and had to start the process all over again!  Well, this time was different!  It had already expired!  How the hell could that happen, I hear you ask?! Well, the sticker on the front of the envelope said it had been redirected in Budapest.  Budapest is in Hungary.  Hungary borders Austria…so some numpty has misread Australia for Austria and my online code has been getting misdirected around Europe, getting all expired!  Meanwhile I’m getting fines for not completing my tax return (funny how those manage to come straight to us!), when I can’t lodge my tax return without the code!   Aarrgghh! Infuriating!?

I live in Australia, not Austria!?

Ian had arranged a private job for the weekend, including equipment and a crew and it had fallen through today, so he was in an even better mood than usual! The fact that it was with my boss only made it slightly less awkward!?  

Saturday:

I was up and out early for parkrun and returned home to a face like thunder.  Ian had been kept awake most of the night by the guy over the back fence having a party.  He has a tendency to blare his music into the early hours but I cocoon myself into the covers and block it out that way and Mia must sleep like me, as it doesn’t bother her either!  He’s a sensitive sleeper though, is our Ian!  Apparently he had called the police, which usually does the trick, but last night it had just kept going and apparently there is a rule that you are only allowed to call up and report a noise disturbance once?! Well that’s a stupid rule!  I’ve ordered him to wake me up if it happens again and I’ll ring in my quota as well!

I checked my calendar to check Mia’s swimming time and realised we were meant to be at a birthday party in 15 minutes!!! I looked out to Mia on the couch in her pjs and realised that was never happening. Plus we hadn’t got a present or anything yet! She was a bit sniffly so I messaged the Mum and made my apologies citing illness, but I should have really said “I’m an absolute disgrace.  I’m ridiculously disorganised and forgot to look at the calendar!” so here is my confession!  Sorry for being shit!  I’m usually pretty good with dates too, but all I can say in my defence is, I only found out about it the weekend before and there was no invitation, so it had slipped my mind.  Decided it was best not to tell Mia or I would be facing her wrath as well as feeling self-guilt!

Mia had moved up swimming groups and suddenly looked tiny against the big girl next to her, which gave me an “Aw!” moment. She’s growing up so quickly that we don’t seem to get as many of those “Look how little she is!” moments anymore, so I embraced it!  She started off pretty nervously too, but was soon getting stuck in.  Then it dawned on me, as her new swimming teacher was waving at me, that she was friends with the Mum whose party I had missed, relayed the information to Ian and he said “Yeah, you’re fucked!”  A timely reminder that honesty is always the best policy!  Mia then completely embarrassed me in the changing room when I asked her how her first lesson in the new group went, by saying:  “I was faster than that big girl, Mummy!” (Complete with point!) “It’s not a race, sweetheart!”(through clenched teeth!). “But it was a race, Mummy! And my teacher said she’s naughty!”  “I’m sure she was just joking! Ha! Ha!”  Ground. Swallow. Me. Up. As. I. Hide. From. The. Other. Mummy’s. Glare.???

It was Ian’s turn to make dinner, so he enlisted an eager helper, who has a little chef’s hat and apron for such occasions! I walked into the kitchen and said “Well hello, Chef Mia!” to play along with her and she said “How do you know my name?!”  Really?!?

“Chef Mia”, such an original name, you’ll never guess it!?

The high point of the day came when I saw the Parkrun photos from this morning! I usually hate the photos and actively avoid the photographer, so imagine my surprise when, instead of ten chins and bright red face, I actually looked halfway human!  My friend also pointed out that I looked like I was winning, which was far from the truth, but not only had the photographer got a decent angle, but me at the front of a group!  I need to find this person and thank them!?

First running pic without fifty chins!?

Today I had checked the calendar and remembered the birthday party, which was a 3rd Birthday bowling party.  When I walked in, one of the Dads said “Where’s GH?!” and I was astounded!  “OMG, do you read my blog?!” “Yeah! And then I asked my wife if she has a pet name for me!”? He didn’t say if he liked it, but I was just shocked that people actually read this, let alone a man!  Not being sexist at all, just that my man couldn’t be less interested in my blog if he tried!?

I turned around and Mia was eating a Cheerio (cocktail sausage, not cereal, Brits).  “Where did you get that from?!” I asked.  “The party table.” she answered, pointing across the room to another person’s birthday spread!?”That’s not for our party, Mia! Don’t take food from there again, okay?!”  It’s a good job she’s small enough to get away with being a food thief!

I am not talented in the area of bowling, but went from dire in the first game, to 3 strikes in the second, so I’m obviously a slow starter.  The kids also had their own game going on, so it meant dashing between the two, but we got there in the end!

While we had been finishing our game, I noticed Mia had been quietly sitting and using her water art activity set from her goody bag and was curious as to who had helped her fill her pen up?  “No one.  I just took a drink and spat it on the page!” ?

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my darling daughter! Resourceful, but gross!

Talk to you next week!☺