Crepeys/Hagsnet - come to the candlelight!

[MrsSchadenfreude]

As the last thread is now full...

I am having a 'fat' day when nothing seems to fit properly and I feel AND I am starving......

I predict imminent arrival of Aunt Flo, in her little red car. The bitch.

could be right Herbs....

I'm with Herbs. Does sound that way Blackduck.

I hauled myself through shred and Gillian was right, it wasn't a cakewalk. Hmmmm, cake....

I've just hauled a few bags of pebbles on to the 'patio', split them open and trodden them about. Do you think that is as calorie-burning as the shred? Can I have fish and chips tonight? Do I care? Bizarrely, since stopping my diet - due to holiday, gyppy batty, and laziness - I have continued to lose weight. About a pound a week! Take that Jillian!

I am off home to dismantle trampoline (see up/down thread...) - that's as much exercise as I am doing today....

I am very herbs - I am putting on a pound a week atm, or so it seems

I am bloated, self-pitying and exhausted. Hmm....

Felt guilty because I have had such an easy day. Have done no work, went out to lunch and then spent a pleasant hour (and all the money I didn't earn and then some) buying nail varnish in loads of snazzy colours, chocolate face packs and jelly beans and perusing dvds for dd's b-day do. All utterly frivolous and over-the-top girly. I do not know where dd's girliness comes from, because I am, frankly, about as girly as Norah Batty. Much to dh's disappointment.

I will now pay for this morning's loafing, however, as I have to answer a long email from our accountant and clean the house from top to bottom to make it guest-friendly.

ps: am trialling a khaki eyeliner. Am quite liking to effect so far, but have also dyed lashes v. black. The dcs have not made any adverse comments yet, which is my best barometer of S&B faux pas.

I have just ceased being bloated, self-pitying and exhausted. Until next time.

Well, I'm pleased to report I've been very virtuous on the exercise front this week - two runs and a rounders tournament with work colleagues (we came home with silver medals; much astonishment and admiration from the DCs).

I'm so relieved another monstrously busy week is drawing to a close. Why is the last half of the summer term so....frantic?!

To prime one for the horror bliss of the summer holidays. Oh god. Am engaged in frantic Negotiations with fellow-parents about ways to exchange our lovely children and be able to work over the hols....

I'm so not looking forward to the school years. How the blazes is one supposed to have a career when there's school runs and holidays to be factored in? Do I have to become a teacher?

Far more terrifying are the tales of school gate cliques, and PTA politics. Maybe they're the real reason people choose to home school.

DS's joint NCT group 2nd birthday party is this afternoon, after 100s of amusing/enraging email/text exchanges where queen bee of group tries to pull the rest of the group to what she wants to do - morning ? while the other seven stubbornly refuse to be drawn. She even resorted to claiming it was going to piss down all afternoon, when a simple check of the weather forecast revealed it would not. Maybe the PTA will be a walk in the park after NCT politics...

Oh, ignore the tales of cliques. Really. People go on and on and on about the horror of the school gate but I rather love it. Full of nice people I like hanging out with. We had the school barbecue last night and it was terrific - everyone hanging out in the playground drinking beer.

You're freelance, like me, right? First few years of school: yes, you need to sort out holiday and possibly after-school cover. I have two, and they're now older, so I do tend to cut and paste a bit with holidays - if we don't pay Real Money for formal care, we do a lot of child-swaps and let them just get on with it and I emerge at lunchtime to feed them; and after school mine can veg for an hour and then have to go and find something else (however pointless) to do.

The holidays issue is one good reason to be friendly towards other parents. (Many of whom, I really have found, are delightful.)

herbs, you are right to worry about the school years and the negotiating work/pickups/hols. It only seems to get worse as they get older too - a multitude of sports, clubs, parties, meet-ups, etc to ferry them to.... And I'm a teacher only working part-time

On the plus side, just bought a lovely pair of silver-grey linen trousers at a local boutique sale for £23!!!!

I am freelance, yes, and work from home, but oddly find myself pining for a bit of office action. For years I was a freelance sub-editor, which I loved, so I might go back to that, and try and work my hours around school. Or ? drum roll ? maybe DP can be factored in to the whole organisational mayhem.

Ooh! PLEASE can I tell you, while I remember? Someone - a woman, yet - in my choir thought I was in my early thirties. I felt quite unhaggy and beamed idiotically like this

Oh MI I am (not vom this time) at someone thinking you are early thirties - though you are gorgeous - never likely to happen to me! School and childcare god yes a nightmare. I am relatively lucky dp is an academic so hols can be finessed to some extent, but it is a patchwork of clubs, grandparents, days off etc etc. I can work from home at a push and at least he is now at an age where he can amuse himself more. Agree with MI you must make friends with some mothers (not easy if like me you rarely do school run) if only to fall back on them in an emergency.

You will probably find other parents who work from home / part-time who would be more than happy to do swaps, etc.

No-one will be saying that I look in my early thirties today (unlikely at any time as I am in my late 40's!) as I feel 101

I went to buy a new swimsuit. Tried on one - couldn't get it off! Was thinking how the hell do I get out of this!! I seriously need to a. lose weight b. go up a size!

Well that's not very supportive BigT

Sorry BD

I am so glad I no longer have to go into the playground - just negotiating past all the yummy mummies with their younger chldren in prams, buggies and scootering / running around is a nightmare.
I do have lots of really lovely "parent" friends though - it's not really cliquey, or wasn't in DC's year groups.

It was quite bigT!! I think the playground is as cliquey as anywhere else, no less so, no more so. I am generally out of it because, as I said, I rarely do the school run so get forgotten about. Some parents are nice, some are horrendous but that is pretty much true of people.