The days, weeks and months are flying past at the speed of light, and I don’t appear to be any closer to my ultimate dream of a Roald Dahl style writing shed, so I am going to attempt to cut the waffle (I did say attempt!) and summarise in some monthly bumper instalments!

I was travelling further afield for work, which I struggle with as I am not a good long-distance driver. In fact, I have a hard time staying awake on the boringly straight roads, which is pretty bloody dangerous, so in an attempt to stay awake, I stuff my face with sweets and drink Red Bull, which is obviously bad for my health/waistline. But it’s either inhale sugar or die, so I would rather go for the former!😬 One of my placement schools is in Stanthorpe which is a 4 hour round trip, so basically I drop Mia at school, dash to the office to pick up the training material, drive there, train the kids for just over an hour, turn straight around and drive back to Toowoomba to be back in time for pick up! There isn’t much leeway and I have been late to get to her a couple of times! Stanthorpe seems to be a cute little place and people tell me it’s lovely, but I haven’t had chance to really see it for myself yet. I did manage to pull over for a selfie with the Big Apple however! You know, just to prove that I had actually been there!🙊

One of the other schools I have been visiting regularly is up in Highfields so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and visit one of the ladies that I have met through the Mumpreneurs Facebook page on my way back. She had offered me a free makeover to sample some products so I thought “Why not?!” She was so nice and we got chatting and agreed to do a play date with the kids in a couple of weeks. She did a lovely job on my make up too and when I got back in the car I was admiring her handiwork and taking some selfies, when she knocked on my car window to give me a mascara sample and sprung me in full blue steel mode, which was pretty bloody embarrassing, but we both just cracked up laughing! My kind of girl!😅

I sashayed back into the office looking mysteriously more made up than when I left, which must have been weird for my colleagues🙊 and then proceeded to be the most glam I have ever been for school pick up!💁🏼 The way people react when I have my make up done is testament to how horrendous I must surely look on your average day! But I usually do my make up last, which means I inevitably run out of time and settle for just concealing the eye bags and a mum-bun is my go-to weekday hair, so they have a valid point!🤣

I had posted my blue-steel selfie and Ian had clearly seen it, as after dinner he ran me a bubble bath!😲 I KNOW!😲😲😲 Counselling had been going well and I was looking the best I was going to get without plastic surgery, so maybe he thought romance was on the cards!😘 He even poured me a glass of vino!😲 Which I proceeded to drink, put some music on and relaxed…and fell asleep!🙈 Ian woke me up when he came to check on me and informed me that he was going to bed. Oops, I did it again, I made a grumpy husband!😬

Work-wise, I felt as if I was in a comedy of errors. I train students to be Education Support Workers, aka Teacher Aides, aka Teaching Assistants, i.e. their role is to help the teacher. Depending on experience and the rapport between them and the teacher their role can vary between teaching small groups and doing the photocopying; but at the start it will most likely be administrative duties. For some reason, I had an influx of students who thought those tasks were beneath them and were moaning that “all they were doing was cutting and sticking!” Part of me wanted to give them a reality check and part of me wanted to swap jobs with them! Cutting and sticking sounded so therapeutic!😌

I like my students to give their opinions about education in their assessments, but one particular student was going to town with her criticism of the school and in particular her classroom teacher. I asked her to tone it down a little and keep her writing respectful, but her teacher had already read it and had flown off the handle!🙈 I ended up in a meeting with the student, the supervising teacher, the business manager and the Principal, which was awkward to say the least!😳 Cutting and sticking sounded even more appealing while I was trying to shovel that student out of the shit, that’s for sure!😅

A man with a gun was on the loose in Toowoomba in the vicinity of two schools, so unbeknownst to me, they were in lockdown! I had gone to get a Boost juice (sneaky plug, free Boosts come at me!🤗) for lunch and was driving to my next school when I noticed a lot of police cars. I slowed right down, fearing that they were going to try to do me for speeding, and pulled into the car park. I tried to get out of the car and was shouted at to “STAY IN THE VEHICLE!” “Oh shit!”😳😳😳 I checked my emails on my phone and one was from the Vocational coordinator at the school telling me that they were in lockdown and might be there for some time, so not to bother coming today!🙄 I messaged back to inform her that I was there but was confined to my car. Thank goodness I didn’t need the loo! And that the shooter didn’t come my way of course!!! Obviously I would rather pee my pants than get shot! I got to finish my smoothie, check emails, stalk Facebook etc and was finally given the all clear to get out of the car!😌

Due to that incident, the school I was visiting the next day was doing Lockdown practice…right when I was visiting!🙈 Talk about a bad omen! This time I ended up hiding in a filing room with the office staff for the drill. Whilst crouching down, I realised that we were completely in view of the glass door, so if there was an active shooter, we would easily be seen and shot! I informed the office ladies, who seemed shocked by this revelation and said they would report back. Surely not being seen would be the point?!?!?🤔

Little Miss Moo climbed into my bed the next morning and told me that she had to sit on the buddy bench the day before at school because she had no friends, which broke my heart a little!😢 She has always been such a sociable little girl so this surprised me. I had a quick word with her teacher when I dropped her off and she informed me that there was a love quadrangle going on and Mia had taken it really badly!😳 Well that explained the buddy bench situation then! Mia is a highly emotional little girl. She loves her boy friends, but tends to get a little fixated (I will call this the Disney Princess syndrome👸🏼). She decides one boy will be “the one” and then launches an obsessive attack, sometimes bordering on bunny boiler! In every life situation, she seems to have one boy she obsesses over and it’s a bit scary at age 5!😳 I always remember having boyfriends from an early age too, or at least, I think I did! Maybe I was a full-on bunny boiler too?!?!🐰😬 Needless to say, we had to have a big chat about having lots of different friends and giving people space!😬

Ian’s Dad came to visit out of the blue which meant GH (Grumpy Husband) and I had to share a bed again. Counselling had been going well but we had become pretty separated regarding the bedroom situation and had both become accustomed to our own space! Ian gets up really early for work, whereas I’m more of a night owl. He tosses and turns and shakes the whole bed and apparently I sound like Darth Vader!🤨 Basically we had more reasons to have separate beds than to share…until we were forced back into the same one again! It didn’t go well. I asked if he wanted any help preparing for dinner. “No.” So I went to Pilates as usual and came back to a frosty reception. Clearly no had meant yes!🤔 I sat outside with everyone to chat and have a drink, but it was a freezing night, so I excused myself and got into bed. Ian came in later and switched the fan on!🥶 He likes the room to be like a fridge, I prefer cosy. We argued about it. We somehow got on to the fact that I had gone out and hadn’t helped with dinner! (I knew it! Always trust your gut instinct!😒) Neither of us were budging, as we are both as stubborn as each other, so we were pettily switching the fan on and off again like a pair of kids.🙈 In the end GH retreated to the couch in a huff and squashed any feeling of victory I may have had with the parting words “Night, fatso!” Low blow!🤬 “Night, dickhead!” was my highly original retort!🤷🏼‍♀️

We had our last counselling session! We didn’t know it was going to be our last session when we arrived but our counsellor informed us that she was changing jobs and wasn’t allowed to tell us where she was going due to professionalism! Were we that bad that she was doing anything she could to escape us?!?!🤪 She said that we were communicating much better than we had been at the start. We decided not to inform her of “fan-gate”!😬 She advised us to continue with the sessions to maintain the relationship, but we decided to take the holidays as a natural break, with no firm plan to return…

Following the counselling session, Ian somehow managed to snap his car key off in the lock!🙄Luckily we had driven there separately so I could give him a lift home and back to retrieve the spare key! We were going to the Bunnings Easter family fun night so needed a speedy turnaround and decided to just have Bunnings sausages for dinner to save time!

I’ve still been attempting to go to parkrun every week. I’m never going to be a runner or even actually enjoy running in the moment, but it’s actually more of a social event, it gets my steps in and I feel like I have accomplished something afterwards. I can’t recommend it enough to people as it’s about so much more than actually running. Anyway, on this particular morning, I was ambling along more slowly than usual when the guy a little way in front of me staggered to the side and collapsed. It all seemed to happen in slow motion and it’s safe to say I was as much use as a chocolate teapot. He had had a heart attack. Luckily a guy running up behind was a trained First Aider and gave CPR on the spot but there was a moment there where his whole body gave up and went floppy and essentially he died right in front of us. The girl next to me rang an ambulance and, as luck would have it, there happened to be one at the other end of Queens Park which could get to him quickly. I stood there with tears streaming down my face, as everyone attempted to resuscitate him and they managed to get his heart started again and him into the ambulance. It was a very sobering event and I walked to the finish with the girl with the phone a bit dazed. They hadn’t received the memo at the finish line, as they were still trying to get smiling photos of us finishing, but from the looks on our faces you can see that we were deep in thought.

Somehow in the relayed story, my name became involved and I was thanked for helping him on the scene! I explained that I really didn’t do anything at all, in fact I have probably never felt more useless in my life, but I was phoned and updated on his condition and was pleased to hear that he made a full recovery. The good that came out of that situation is that parkrun got a defibrillator to use should such emergencies happen again and I always make sure I run with my phone now in case we need to call anyone urgently. It was also a reality check of how fragile life really is. Why do I waste so much energy on things that don’t really matter? And also, why do I freeze in those kinds of situations?! Thank goodness for First Aiders and Emergency services or it could have ended so differently! I went home and tightly hugged Mia and Ian.

We went for a free Easter egg hunt in Queens Park and I had arranged to meet up with the lady in Highfields and her kids for a play date. However, meeting up in such a busy place was not such a good idea. We were there with other friends too and one of the boys had run off and gone missing, so we were frantically searching for him, running into other friends and trying to text to meet up all at the same time. We found the little boy, but by the time I located the Highfields lady and her kids, Mia was past caring and refused to make any effort, which just made the whole exercise pretty embarrassing! I tried hissed threats, but sometimes even they fail and your kids are hell-bent on publicly shaming you! Thank you, darling daughter!🤨

We had booked to go camping with friends over the Easter break and Mia had been up since 5:45am excited to go! Unfortunately she had to get through the last day of school which included an Easter hat parade and her first cross country first!

Ian had got his craft on to help Mia with her Easter hat and had gone to town with papier mâché and feathers galore! It was such a cute little bonding activity for them and so nice to see. As regularly referenced, I am not a practical person and Art was a subject that Ian actually liked at school so he was definitely the best man for the job! There was an instance where Mia could be heard wailing “Why can’t I help, Daddy?!?!” so he may have taken his role a little too seriously at times. School had given us a paper plate as the base and Mia has an odd-shaped head like her Mummy, so the main flaw was that the hat didn’t actually fit on her head, but other than that, it was a job well done!

I had booked time off work to watch the cross country and it was hilarious. None of the kids appeared to know what was in store for them, so they all set off with huge grins and waves to parents and returned with grimaces! One of Mia’s friends won the whole thing, so I was avidly cheering her to the finish line, which did not go unnoticed by Mia, who demanded to know why I was cheering for her friends and not her! I tactfully tried to explain that her friend was going to win and she was a bit further back, but she was not impressed and has yet to learn the art of losing gracefully (competitive streak passed down too!). I asked her to congratulate her friend in an attempt to instill some sportsmanship and was met with a “Well done!” hissed through gritted teeth! Something to work on there then!

Straight after school we set off for the Coast, but it was still dark by the time we arrived at the campsite, with an added present of a rain shower, so we decided to postpone the tent-pitching until the following day and slept on a mattress in the back of Ian’s Ute, which aside from Mia’s rogue kicky leg, was a pretty comfortable sleep!

The campsite was great with brilliant facilities, one being the pool, so as soon as we had eaten breakfast, I took Mia across there while Ian pitched the tent. Tactical avoidance by me and Ian loves to be Mr Wilderness so win-win! At the pool, a duck had mistakenly entered and pooped, which was closely followed by a rogue toddler poop!😷 To their credit, staff were straight onto it and cleared the area for cleaning, but it put me right off my lunch!

In the afternoon we went down to the Creek where Ian went fishing in his canoe and we pottered around on the beach. One of the Dads had been fishing and left his rod out and Mia managed to fall directly onto a fish hook and got it stuck in her thigh!😱 She was screaming the entire beach down and nobody could get it out, so I was thinking we were going to have to take a trip to Emergency, but in rowed Mr T to save the day and just whipped it out!😷 I then noticed that his foot was bleeding and he informed me that he had slipped on some rocks on the other side of the creek and had sliced his foot open! Accident-prone family or what?!😖

The next day, we decided to stay around the campsite as there were so many kids activities on and had a big pool session where my grumpy husband had turned into the life and soul of the party!😲 Maybe it was the change of scenery, or just having some time off, or maybe he had consumed one too many beers, but he was a pleasure to be around and we were laughing and joking together like the good old days. The main attraction for me was how he was getting into the water and playing about with the kids, but as I watched him lining up for the water slide, I couldn’t help but notice how hot he was looking!🤩 His job is physical so that keeps him in pretty good shape in general, but hubba hubba, hubby!😍 I had a rekindled appreciation! Next minute, I was lining up for the waterslide with him and we had the best afternoon splashing around and reigniting the flame! 🔥

We decided to go for dinner later at the local surf club and Mia continued her injury-streak by trying to sprint in her new sandals (I had bought the next size up in an attempt to get them to last slightly longer), tripping over her own feet and grazing up both of her knees! Not a happy bunny!🐰😖

The kids had a disco (complete with hilarious dance moves!) and we had a few/lots of drinks.🥂 The artist formerly known as Grumpy Husband was now touchy-feely husband, which was reciprocated!🥰 We put Mia to bed in the tent and got into the back of the Ute for a nightcap. I was thinking it was my lucky night and then Ian said “Are you getting out then?!”

😐Come again?!?! “Huh?”

“I think I’m going to sleep in here tonight. You can sleep in the tent with Mia.”

“What….now?!?!”

“Yeah, I’m pretty tired. It’s been a big day!”

…”Are you kidding?!?”

“Why? What?”

Ladies and gentlemen, romance had well and truly left the campsite!😒 I exhaled the biggest sigh known to mankind and very noisily flounced out of the Ute, as dramatically as I could when I had to precariously dangle my legs down onto an Esky before reaching the ground! I was fuming!😤 Why did I bother?! Why did I put my heart out there to get trampled on?! Why were we never on the same wavelength?! So I did what most inebriated, annoyed women would do. I texted him to tell him how pissed off I was! And then passed out in the tent!😴

I awoke at 4am to an excited little face in mine asking if the Easter Bunny had been!🤢 This is why Mums shouldn’t drink too much! I pointed to the bottom of her bed (at least I had had the wits to sort that before the Ute incident!) and told her I needed to go back to sleep so gave her the iPad. There are times when an electronic babysitter is a necessity and this was one of those times!

I awoke the second time to the smell of bacon and Wilderness Husband cooking breakfast on the barbecue. As much as I wanted to bear a massive grudge, we both knew he had what I wanted…a massive juicy bacon sandwich!😋 Hangover cure extraordinaire and all was forgiven!

Easter egg hunts, go karts, face paint, splatter painting, beach trips, surf clubs, outdoor movies – we had a blast! Getting away from the daily grind was so good for all of us and definitely helped our relationship too. Clearly we weren’t without our hitches, but if it was all smooth sailing, it wouldn’t be real life, would it? And far less interesting for you to read about too!☺️

Anyway, I’m glad we can look back on our trip with such fond memories!😉 Thank you for reading!😊