bella!

An Alchemy order to Etsy for an Italian themed book bag,

This one was hard work.  Fun, but time consuming.

John’s mum is turning into the heart attack kid.  She got taken in to hospital again last week, having had yet another one.  The last week has been spent worrying and travelling to and from the hospital and phoning relatives you wouldn’t really want to phone and family politics like you wouldn’t believe.  I’m tired.  Isn’t that selfish of me?  She’s in hospital, and I’m complaining about how tired I am.  Truth be told, I’m too done into care how selfish that sounds soo…

So now I’ll think of something good.  This weekend my little sister is coming up to Liverpool to do some shopping and hang out.  Mainly for the shopping I think.  I can’t wait.  She and I are like chalk and cheese: she’s the sensible one and I’m the irresponsible one, she’s blonde and I’m brunette, she likes old school punk and Japanese pop music and, as you may have gathered, I’m a bit of a hippy musically.  But, as it often does with sisters, it all works out in the end.  AS long as we don’t spend too long together.

I was telling a friend the other day about a game we played when we were kids.  It was called ‘Doctors’ and it basically revolved around the fact that I was the doctor and Jane was the patient.  She lay on the bed whilst I ‘cured’ her illness by covering her stomach in bubble bath, moisturiser, shower gel - essentially all the old stuff that our mum got as Christmas and birthday presents and never used – and then I left her there.

Of course, she couldn’t move because she’d get gunk all over the bed and get in, like, mega trouble with our mum who was no sissy when it cam to keeping us in line.  So she lay there until I decided I’d help her out.  And let me tell you, that took a little while…  And so to leave you today, two pictures of her, one with our step pa and the other with me and our dad.  Toodle pip x

better late than never

Remember aaages ago I had a competition to celebrate my one year blogiversary?   The one where you had to suggest a movie I should watch and your favourite movie quote?  Where Becky won?  Anyone?  Anything?  Well, the day after I announced the winner, I was hard at work sewing up Becky’s sampler, determined that I would get this prize out at least before I went back to school in September.  Then September came and went, on a few Sundays ago the clocks went back for winter, and sat on our dining room table is a parcel I should have posted weeks ago.

Would it make it any better to say that this is a reaction to my childhood?  To a mother that used to take us shopping before the shops opened so we had to wait outside C&A like modern day Oliver Twists begging to be let into the warmth?  Probably not, but ever since I’ve been old enough to make my own arrangements about meeting times I’ve been unintentionally and sometimes fairly dramatically late. But Becky, your sampler is now on it’s way to you and I hope that you don’t mind if I show everyone what it looks like,

Actually, for all my mum’s organisation and strict time-keeping, there were a few occasions where the art of being on time managed to elude her.  The most memorable was the time I had had band practise, a Home Ec practical and PE all in the same day and dear old Carole had said she would pick me up instead of making me get the school bus, laden as I would have been. 

So I stood outside the school gates and watched my bus go past with everyone on it, thinking, she’ll be here soon.  Then, a little later, I said goodbye to my form tutor as she cycled off for home.  Then, after about 30 minutes I realised that maybe she wasn’t going to pick me up.    So off I lumbered, school bag, PE kit, clarinet and tin of chocolate brownies in hand, on the ten minute walk to the nearest pay phone.  If  I phoned home, I’d at least know that she was on her way.

The brownies were the first casualties.  The tin slipped out of my overloaded hands and broke open onto the pavement only to be set upon seconds later by what could only be described as a hoard of hungry and angry ants.  Then the boy from the year above that I had a crush on walked past with his mates, giving me a look of such disdain that I wished the ants were eating me too.

After scooping up what was salvageable from the floor (Why?  Why would anyone ever eat these now?) I trudged on to the nearest payphone, searched through the countless pockets a child seems to have, and realised that I didn’t have any money to make the phone call on me.  No problem, I said to myself, I’ll just reverse the charges, mum’ll understand.  And with that, I phoned the operator.

Now, my bus had left nearly an hour ago, a lifetime in the head of a seemingly abandoned 11 year old school girl, and I had pinned my last hopes on this phone call, imagining and tearful and repentant voice on the other end.  So to hear my mum refuse to take the call was rather like being flushed down the toilet, in a strange way.  Then, on the other end of the line, in the distance, I heard the sound of the school bus driving past our house, the gasp of my mother as she realised what she’d done and the dial tone as she slammed the phone down, having still not accepted my call.  Ten minutes later she turned up looking more than a little harried, with my little sister grinning in the back of the car.  I got in, put my seat belt on, and we went home never to speak of the incident again.  Until of course, we wanted to highlight to her what a bad mother she really  was.

Anyhoo, I have to go now, I was meant to meet John ten minutes ago for lunch.  Seriously x

o canada

Canada was beautiful.  I went with a group of other teachers and we stayed in a place in Ontario called Owen Sound, spending an extraordinary amount of time in various schools across the district.  In between we bowled, watched ice hockey, drank a great deal of Canadian lager and giggled so much it felt like we’d done a hundred sit-ups all at once.  And to leave you, an example of the best row o’mullets I have ever seen,

These fellas rock.  Seriously x