Harvey’s Vegetables

I was greeted with great excitement by my youngest son last night.

He’s still loving nursery, and wanting to get involved in anything he can.

He started babbling about having to take something in for Harvey, a look at my wife only solicited a wry smile.

I calmed him down and asked him to repeat it slowly:

Him:”I’ve got to take something in for Harvey at nursery!”

Me: “O-k, who is Harvey?”

H: “I don’t know, but we’ve got to take something in for him”

M: “O-k, what do you have to take in?”

H: “Vegetables!”

M: “Ah, is that for printing pictures with?” (laughter from my wife, and a puzzled look from him)

H: “No, it’s got to be in cans!”

M: “Cans? Why cans?”

H: ” Teacher said we have to bring vegetable in cans for Harvey”

My wife then stepped in to explain, that it’s for the Harvest Festival at school, and he’s got to take in tinned goods

H: “YES! That’s what I said Harvey’s vegetables!”

Harvest Festival and Harvey’s vegetables aren’t a million miles apart I guess….

Time flies by

when you’re the driver of a train, or so the children’s tv theme goes. It also goes really quickly when you’re a parent.

Yesterday Godzooky 3 started nursery, the nursery attached to his school that is. He only goes for half a day, but it does require full school uniform now.

Which proved interesting when we took him for his induction last week. The nursery teacher is new to the school, and coincidentally the only male teacher in the school, and as such blissfully unaware of the track record Godzooky 3 has.

He’s a well known character throughout the school, as he certainly isn’t backwards in coming forwards, or basically is into everything and wants to know everyone.

As we approached the nursery last week we were greeted by Mr Wild (hopefully with that name he can cope with the new influx of small people!) who tried to direct us to the Reception classroom next door – for the children a year older than Godzooky 3!

It only became really apparent to me why he’d made this error when his new classmates arrived (there were only about half a dozen being inititaed at the same time) and Godzooky 3 literally stands head and shoulders above them in a physical sense.

I don’t think of him as being particularly big for his age, although we did get a slight inkling when we went to buy new school shoes. He takes a bigger size shoe than his sister, who is 18 months older. It was still quite a shock, seeing that difference in size. It’s left me slightly worried about how he’ll act towards the other kids : he takes no crap off his older brother (who’s 9 now) and will happily trade blows with him. I don’t want him to act like that around smaller children!

Still, all went wel on the first day apparently, no tears on getting left by mum, unlike a couple of kids who cried for the whole 3 hours apparently! He loved it and couldn’t wait to go back today, so it seems to be a good start….

Another weekend

another mother related panic.

This time I got a message that she couldn’t change channels on her tv, but not to worry, she’s just watch that one channel she could get, oh and by the way I’m off to put up new curtains.

Cue me frantically trying to persuade her that I would put the curtains up for her and sort out her tv again.

The tv problem was easily evident when I got there. She’s pressed the wrong input select button on her remote. A simple press of the “TV” button enabled channel changes again.

The distance between us is starting to become a real problem in my eyes. There are simple things to sort out, that would be easy if I lived round the corner, but a 90 minute car journey precludes that kind of thing.

The problems of being an only child manifest themselves in a myriad of ways.

She’s really suffering woth gout at the moment too, which means that getting out and about is almost impossible for her. My concerns about her are growing evermore each day.

I really don’t know what the solution is going to be: she won’t contemplate moving closer to us, and I can’t relocate my job, leaving us at a real impasse.

This year, life seems to be dealing me quite a nasty hand, and I’m still non the wiser how to play the hand I’ve been dealt.

The woes of Public Transport

Even though I work in the field I do feel able to criticise it.

Currently out tram network is down, which means I am relegated to the bus network. A trip home that takes 25 minutes on the tram took me 80 minutes last night.

The bus had it’s heater on too, so a muggy day was made a lot worse .

On the positive side I did manage to get my head into a book, so I passed the time usefully rather than tutting at the traffic jams as my  neighbouring passenger did.

It’s only for a month, It’s only for a month may become my new mantra to get me through this.

On another positive note, it may provide me with some interesting blog material: there do seem to be some “interesting” characters around….

Long Weekend

I took a couple of days off last week, primarily to get some quality time in with the kids. Thursday was dreadfully wet, but meant that we had to spend a lot of time finding fun things to do in the house, which wasn’t as much of a challenge as I first feared.

We also went shopping for picnic things, in prepartion for a trip to the Eureka Children’s Museum in Halifax on Friday.

We got up nice and early and headed off to get there for when it opened at 10am, which turned out to be a wise move. The traffic on the way there was nowhere near as bad as I feared, and the weather even seemed to improve in sympathy.

The museum itself is a very hands on affair, with lots of things for the kids to push and pull. getting there early meant we got a good run at amost things before they got too busy.

Whilst we were there I got a rather panicky phone call from Grandma Zilla – her new tv wasn’t working and she was worried about sorting it out.

I tried to get her to switch off at the socket and back on again, but still no improvement. So I asked her to get out the receipt and promised a trip up on the Saturday to sort it out.

It turned out that the power surge protector had tripped out, and a simple click on and off of that sorted everything out! She felt terrible about dragging me all the way up there for that, but as an only child I appreciate that is what I’m there for. If she can’t rely on me, who can she rely on?

Life and all it’s vagaries

there are some moments in life which are really hard. We visited Grandma Zilla this weekend, and whilst we did have a lovely time there were moments of sadness interspersed.

The weather was gorgeous, warm sunshine to bask in, but coupled with a nice steady breeze to prevent you overheating.

We went to the beach and the kids paddled in the sea whilst I set about damming a small stream that runs into the sea, in that manly father type way that we tend towards.

We then travelled inland a mile or so, traversing the hill and passing all the freshly shorn sheep on the way (some of whom have scant regard for cars, and will amble along the road at a pace to suit themselves, even shouts of “mint sauce” not provoking fear in them!) up to the stone circle*

* this is not in anyway on the same scale as Stonehenge etc, but merely a small collection of limestone rocks that have been put into a small circle with a diameter of about 12 feet.

My daughter likes to think of it as a fairy circle and imagine herself as one, dancing around the circle waving her magic wand.

All pleasant, happy things to do on a bright summer’s day.

Then certain moments can change your outlook completely: Grandma Zilla telling me that I shouldn’t get old, it’s horrible apparently.

I tried pointing out that the alternative to getting old isn’t much of a better choice: death!

She laughed, but she is clearly not a happy soul at the moment, her quality of life post stroke is not what she wants it to be.

I’m hoping it’s just a bad day she was having, but I sense on the phone soemtimes that things are not going great for her. It’s times like this that make living so far away difficult.

Swine Flu and War

the attendant panic surrounding this is now coming closer to home. The first “suspected” case in the office has arrived.

Although to be fair this woman has been panicking for weeks about contracting it. She now thinks she has symptms, but has not yet had it confirmed.

Am I alone in thinking that our country has hyped this dramatically? Nowhere else seems to have tehse front page headlines and media obssessions. I hope hindsight doesn’t prove me wrong on this, but I’m becoming rather indifferent to the news.

Currently the death rate is similar to that of any normal flu strain, yet people seem to be actively seeking out helathy people dying from it.

My approach somewhat reflects my attitude to members of the armed forces dying in Afghanistan. Er, you are fighting a war, there will be casualties as a matter of course. Especially if you’re fighting in a country that hasn’t been conquered in over a hundred years, and that’s despite the best efforts previously of the Russians!

Anyone signing up these days must appreciate that we seem to be in our most belligerent state since the second world war. We keep finding causes to fight, yet then get upset when our troops die? Cause and effect surely?

The link between swine flu and war seems clear to me though. We haven’t had a signifcant global conflict to cull the population numbers for a couple of generations now, so Mother Nature is stepping in to do the job herself.

Recap

Where to start? So much seems to have gone on.

Firstly my mother. She’s doing ok, and on a good day, when she’s not tired, I can understand about 90% of what she’s saying.

When she’s tired, she slurs her words more and is almost unintelligible.

She is up and down with her moods, which is pretty understandable, and in all honesty I don’t think I’d be coping as well as she is.

In another development to an already shit year, my boss died from bowel cancer. It was all pretty sudden, he was diagnosed and died within a three week period. They tried to operate, although it was already deemed terminal, to try and give him some extra time and a better quality of life, However he just wasn’t strong enough to get through the operation. An earlier diagnosis may have given him a better chance.

The suddenness of all this left a huge hole in my life. I’d worked with the guy for 13 years, and he was the father figure in my life, so his loss hit me quite hard on both a personal and work level.

It’s looking like they’re not going to replace him at work, which has meant me taking on a lot of the stuff he used to deal with. I’m always up for a fresh challenge, but this does feel pretty weird still. The extra cash doesn’t seem anywhere near enough either, but that’s not really an issue of importance. I still find myself thinking “wait till Geoff hears about that”, and then I realise that he’s not here anymore.

He was a great man, selfless and always helpful, and I truly hope I can follow in his footsteps with even half the grace and dignity he had. He was a great role model for how to conduct yourself, both professionally and personally, and I learnt  a lot from him.

In better news, the two eldest kids have done really well at school this year, both getting great reports and proving themselves to be very able. Our youngest starts nursery, part time, in September. Where the time has gone I just don’t know.

That’s the main news recapped, the day to day stuff can take over from now….

I may be on the verge

of a return.

It’s been a long time, and a lot has happened, but teh urge to blog is returning….

My mood of doom

and gloom is persisting I’m afraid.

Life just seems to be dealing nothing but trouble and woe at the moment.