Crepeys/Hagsnet - the moonlight beckons!

[MrsSchadenfreude]

Because moonlight gives you a nice glow and doesn't show up your wrinkles or grey hair.

Oh hell - all thoughts of nice frocks and what I can persuade MI to nick from the store cupboard at her new job have been blasted out of my head by the news that the lady who picks my kids up from school two days a week when I am at the office is not going to be able to do it from now on. She has just got her college schedule and it's more full time than she was expecting. Crap! And I was just looking forward to getting back to a routine and my one precious day a week when someone else give the kids their tea and I arrive home to fed/bathed/homeworked children. And I have plaster being hacked off parts of my house tomorrow as we get our damp course fixed. And I have to take all three children to the dentist on Tuesday. (Dentist and damp not anything to do with childcare issues, really, but you know how things pile up).

[goes off to feel sorry for self]

Will you all please stop linking to dresses! I am trying to curtail my spending and it isn't helping! The is a stripey wooly one I like in M&S but like the ones CV linked to as well....
First full week back in four weeks -ahhhh - and ds goes back Thursday if dp hasnt murdered him before then.

PM dementia has definitely set in. I thought DS went back on Wed, but it's apparently tomorrow, with an Inset day on Friday Good job I found out in time! I will have to get out all his uniform today and check it double-quick.

Oh Wilbur, oh hell. I deeply sympathise.

Have had v short haircut. Hoping again for pixie. Suspect - especially as cold-ridden - have settled for gnome.

MI - gnome

I would look like an extra from Prisoner Cell Block H with a very short cut!

It's a bit scary; have left longer fringey bits this time, but I do keep forgetting that the last time I had very short hair I was, ahem, 31.

I always have short hair - too fine to grow long, just looks dreadful. I like it short.

MI - I did at gnome (sure I was a gnome in Brownies.......)

I was a Pixie! - the most un-pixie-like looking Brownie in the pack

Can't wait for tomorrow when DS goes back to school and I go back to work - the DC have cabin-fever and are arguing/shrieking/whining.....

I think I was a pixie too... A pixie with tree-trunk legs.

Just bought a pair of 'straight' jeans from New Look for £20. On my tree-trunks, straight are as close to skinny as I'm willing to go. They look OK, though.

Following my 'non-scene gay club birthday party' wardrobe dilemma, how about this one? DP's boss invited us to his house yesterday for a garden party. Very casual, apparently. 'Just wear what you would to a festival.' Oh lordy. Felt I was in a Terry & June sitcom scenario, and by wearing the wrong thing I'd cost DP his promotion. But think I pulled it off - 'skinny combats', royal blue fancy vest thing with frills, and Converse. Plus aged cardie, which probably didn't help much.

PMSL at 'just wear what you would to a festival'.

Should have been a pair of mud caked wellies then....

Herbs, you get to go to the best parties! We never get invited to parties with a dress-code

I need a new haircut and my roots done as I am looking rather Lily Savage-esque at the moment. I am wondering if I should go somewhere that offers "relooking" but Parisian haircuts tend to be rather structured and bouffant - sort of stuck in the 80s/90s, or whether I should just get it highlighted again at my local and have my usual Middle Aged Woman cut - side fringe, mid length, curls under chin, with longer layer that flicks up underneath. I would like something a bit more choppy and funky but they never seem to do what I want.

Don't be jealous ladies - that was the last groovy party for a while. And wasn't even that groovy - lots of lawyers. But the most GORGEOUS house. Gave me major house envy. They had an EAMES RECLINER. And a trampoline set into the ground in the garden.

Got a bit pissed on champers. And ate lots of cake. Then had to traverse back across London again with tired toddler, on public transport. One of those ridiculous London journeys that's only about 20 miles but takes two hours.

Mrs S - can you take in a picture to wave under the recalcitrant hairdresser's snooty nose?

Herbs, yes, but I don't know what I want! My hair is thick, curly and unruly and greeted with dismay by most hairdressers who say "There's an awful lot of it" and "You didn't want a full head of highlights, did you?"

I love the beginning of the academic year. I get all New-Year's-Resolutiony, which never happens on Jan 1st. I have bought some trainers for the first time in a long time and have made plans about, ahem, using them for some actual sporty activity.

dd started at new school on Mon - all grown-up in tie and blazer etc. ds is back at school tomorrow. And I have a haircut booked. I wish I could go believing they could do something remotely sensible with my strawish corkscrew frazzle, but I'm fed up with having my hopes dashed. Meh. Just take the Brillo pad ends off then... Still, the upside of having unruly hair is that it distracts the oddness of my face (well, this is what I tell myself, anyway). There is a lot in the media at the moment about "facial symmetry". My face is v. asymmetrical and this is getting a lot worse with age, which is rather depressing. I had a facial paralysis as a young teen which left me rather lopsided. The ex-paralysed half now looks somewhat botoxed compared to the ageing droop of the other half. Booooo. Does not do much for the old self-confidence. Is also why I avoid cameras like the plague.

BTW Blackduck, did the Bongo acquit itself well on its first outing?

Feeling very at the moment - DS had his first day at senior school today, but a foul-up regarding the bus home (it didn't stop for him because it was full after picking up from the other school in the town) has left me somewhat wound up. Luckily I was able to collect him, but if that happens on a daily basis I can't ever rely on the bus (which stops 20 metres from our front door) as a means of him getting home. Grrr.... Local school transport team made sympathetic noises but basically said "tough titty, he's not entitled to free transport so it's not our job to get your son home".

And breeeeeeathe......

Anyway, his first day went swimmingly, and he's just asked me to help him with his homework as he wants to "get it out of the way." Long may it last.

That's annoying CV. And it sounds like it could happen again.
Are there any other older children who might be in a similar position? What do they do in that situation?

Glad he had a good day though. DS had his first day back in Y6 today, but won't be home till after 7 as he went to a mates house for tea and is then going swimming

I don't know any kids round here that go to his school - maybe I need to approach the school and ask.

The transport team said that bus usage often falls away after a few weeks (you'd think it would increase), so maybe we'll try again another time. Poor DS, it became the focus of his day rather than the fun time he had.

How very grrr-making.

I'm feeling a little pale and wan after spending the morning in the local soft play. I'd avoided it all summer hols, fearing it would be hideously crowded, and went today. EGADS. It would seem not all the schools are back, and that those pupils who aren't back yet are particularly wild, feral and crazed with boredom. Many hand-wringing moments as DS (2.1) was trampled in the 'big boys' play area by hoards of 6-year-olds. However, he took it totally in his stride. Manages to be both boring and stressful at the same time.

And this afternoon went to Sainsburys, to purchase materials for an 'olympic-themed' cake stall I have to run on Saturday. Not a total success. And that was after we had to sit in the car for 10 minutes before going in as the rain was so torrential.

Strops, I have a facial symmetry problem too. I have one eye that looks like a glass eye in photos (although that is the "normal" eye) and one that is sort of half closed. I think I need another operation on it, but can't face it. My optician told me very bossily that "it is only going to get worse as you get older and you need to do something about it." I think I shall start wearing sunglasses all the time like my Auntie Iris who is blind and doesn't want anyone to know (and I don't think anyone would, either; she is incredible).

Herbs - I feel your pain at soft play. We have season tickets for Disneyland and due to my determination to get the most out of them, have spent too much time there. August at Disney is to be avoided at all costs...

I just look unspeakable in photos. Holiday snaps reduce me, literally, to tears of self-loathing. The one pic I will consent to be used is the one taken by a professsional photographer for a piece I wrote, for which (a) millions of photos were taken over the course of the day (b) a makeup artist redid my face between each pic (c) all the reject photos are spectacularly horrible (d) I was wearing so much slap that DD2 burst into tears at the school gates ( I had to cut and run, they took so long) and begged me to "keep that look for Halloween, mummy". Really, photos make me surprised that anyone has ever consented to have sex with me ever.