Friday, 22 June 2007

Surprise

I have not been around much I know. We have one GCSE to go and then it is all over.

My husband has been away in San Francisco. He went on Fathers day and I have merely ambled from one day to the next awaiting his return. The week dragged.

Normally I get home from work every day, pour two gin and tonics, go and drag him out of his home office and we sit on our special patio down at the end of the garden in the last of the days sun and we talk. We have always done this, so when he isn't here I miss him dreadfully. It's like missing an arm or something.

I came home tonight. I walked in the door. I have no idea what it was, but I knew. I shouted his name and there he was. He was not due home until tomorrow, he got a flight a day earlier. We had been chatting all day on Messenger and I thought he was on the other side of the world, but he was only a mile away.

My cup runeth over - I love him so much.

Thursday, 7 June 2007

Gardens

I love my garden. Not to do gardening in - I do it, but sometimes it can feel chore like (unless I am majorly hormonal, and then ripping weeds out is fantastic therapy), but to sit in and read books or drink drinks. My garden is my refuge from housework. If I sit in my garden I can't possibly be pushing a hoover round.

My garden is nothing special. The house we live in is fairly new, in that its 6½ years old and we moved in to it from new. My husband went away on the Monday after we moved in, and I was left to organise turfing the back garden. This is did, and not knowing anything about turf, he was horrified when he came back and pointed out that it had all come out of a field and wasn't lawn turf. Hubby, bless him, has been trying valiantly for the last 6½ years to turn it into a bowling green lawn, but it ain't gonna happen.

We live up a little slip of a road that has just three three houses in it. We garden to make it look nice and then leave it a while and then tidy and then leave a while - we are those sorts of gardeners, but compared to our neighbours, we are Alan Titchmarsh and Charlie Dimmock.

I do our hanging baskets, always have, and I have to do 11 every year, and, although I say it myself, they are pretty fab. Neighbour to the right has a gardener, and does absolutely nothing himself. Neighbour to the left has good intentions and then can't be bothered, you know the sort, buys plants then then leaves them lying around because putting them in the ground would be too much effort.

However, when all is said and done, I like where I live, and I like my neighbours and I really like my garden. However, it needs weeding and that I hate, but like the bathrooms and the dusting a polishing and the hoovering, it has to be done.

Either that or I could pour another G&T and go and sit in the greenhouse with my book!

Sunday, 3 June 2007

GCSE Revision

As you know, I work in a school and I get 27 days a year holiday. I like half-term as the teachers who have been moaning about how stressed they are at having to work for six weeks straight, go away, and the school is quite pleasant with no students in it. You will also know that after a day or two I can't wait for them all to come back.

My eldest son's GCSE's start in earnest on Monday - he has two a day for the next fortnight. I have been revising with him. He finds it really helps him to focus, and if there is something he doesn't quite grasp, I can read the books and then explain it too him. So because we have an impending stress fortnight, I decided to take the week off and help him. I don't want him going into the exam and sitting looking at the paper with a complete blank like I did when I sat my 'O'Levels. He has already sat four of them before half-term - Art, Applied ICT, Philosophy and English Literature. We had a mad session on 'Of Mice and Men' and he was pleased because the next day he wrote an 8½ page essay on the book in the exam.

Stress is not something he handles well. Outwardly he looks calm and collected, but his face flairs up with spots and he sleep walks and has night terrors - not something that's easy to handle when he's 6'4" and he's trying to get away from something. He doesn't have them often, but when he does it's because something is bothering him, so the next two weeks should be fun! That and his hormones make for one delightful 16 year old - and there is not enough room in this house for his hormones and mine.

I just want to know that I did everything I could to help him - although he'll probably fail the lot now and he'll blame me!