Crepes, Galettes, Pancakes and Brian the Bucket!

[MrsSchadenfreude]

Here you go...

Not a failure, in this as so much else, Rose.

Rudy, I hope he has Learned His Lesson (though bet he hasn't).

Dd1 and her mates are home. Dd2 is wrapping presents (after packing away a vast lunch in Pizza Express featuring lasagne. She's going to tip her weight over 4 stone at this rate). I have bought a clutch of books and am inclined to retire upstairs with them and perhaps a glass of wine ignoring own rotundity.

DSis has apparently had flaming row with dad (she rang while I was out and talked to DP) because she was urging them to fit a stair lift and he said she was bullying him. This from the man who has done sweet FA about anything like an assessment etcetera . She walked out and is now en route home.

MI, it seems that DS is in your neck of the woods with his mates!
I don't blame your sister.

MI, just bask in the online luuuuurve...much deserved!

And Stropps, what fun that all sounds. May it long continue, no reason it shouldn't.

CAs - I hate them. Dd has fewer than pfb had, and anyway she pushes us away if we want to know anything at all about her life. She does drip feed us with occasional decisions she makes.

MI, one of dd's BFFs is getting a BLACK PUG PUPPY! I have ordered her to bring it round here often, on the pretext that it will need socialising with our laidback dog.

If I ever have a serious rift with dd, I will acquire puppies until she relents...

Glad you've had a fab birthday, Stropps! Sounds fabulous!

Ho, yes, Rose, have had that from my mother - "insufficient thanks for present." And her presents are usually unimaginative - like a cheap book picked up from the garden centre. Tea out is an excellent idea.

I am not a fan of pugs, Molly, as the ones I have known have all been a bit smelly. My cousin has one, and her cat managed to hook the pug's eye and pretty much remove it. She has kept the dog and rehomed the cats to her sister.

MI - your poor sister...

Oh, I know, MrsS, you're so right - they are not to be recommended at all. Nonetheless if someone else acquires one, I am allowed to dote.

6pm on Friday is fine by me, btw, if that's the consensus.

to MI and DSis. It's tiresome when the old folks go on a 'go-slow' when you know what you're telling them makes sense…or is indeed essential. But with mine, I've learnt that I can't short circuit anything…they have to come to things in their own time. My DM once shouted recently…"you can't ride rough shod over us…" when I was getting het up about them not doing the necessary. I nearly exploded…and then just had to give in. They came around to it in the end but wanted ownership of the decision, maddeningly. , I think xx

Thanks MrsS We had tea out…it softened them up. They always let DH pay for everything…. and were rude to the waitress and I ate 2 (2 ii) whole scones Oink…

I am going quite doolally from the domestic and educational shite in my life. CA's, still no cleaner, appointments, chauffeuring, DS2 being arsey about his theatre rehearsals because a dress run clashes with something (entirely dispensable) at school… Tomorrow I am going to fall on ConS, beg him (weeping and wailing ), for intellectual stimulation and ban any talk about DC, aged parents, inlaws, schools and cleaning.

Crepeys, where can we go for half term? Not the whole week, but just a few days. Don't want to do Cornwall, Norfolk. Maybe Edinburgh? Cardiff?

Edinburgh could be snowed in - maybe that would be a good thing?! I suppose Cardiff could be too, but less of a trek if you get stuck?

Pugs, meh. But all puppies are cute!

Rose, 2 scones, you devil

OK, so MU at 6, food 7-7.30? Give everyone a chance to get there?

Glad the birthday is turning out well, Stropps. Make it last all week if you can.

Sorry to hear about DSis, MI but I think Rose puts it well. DMum took more than 10 years even to accept that she needed hearing aids. Every concession to age is a big milestone that she has to negotiate in her own time. At the moment, this takes the form of saying "I'll just take this basket of washing upstairs" and waiting for me to say " no leave it, Mum, I'll take it". She maintains the illusion that she could easily do it.

DH has been up and about today, still coughing but in better spirits. DD has underestimated her homework, so is still hard at it. I'm a bit concerned about the pattern of working late at night/early in the morning and wasting hours in the day. But my influence is on the wane. She has to make A-level choices this week and I don't think she's done any research at all, it's all about how she feels about the subjects from day to day.

Ah, well.

Auriga, I am impressed that she gets up early in the morning! Surely she doesn't have to make a final decision about A levels yet? The interviews that DD has done so far have all said they want an idea of the ones she thinks she wants to do, but that it is not set in stone and one said you could change up to 3 weeks into term!

I would take a dim view of the school if they didn't allow her to change up to December, BTM. And she has been genuinely busy. I'm just having a little Sunday evening wibble to myself

DSis1 (the less ill one) has been signed off work again after not coping with her phased return. DSis2 still seriously ill with depression. DBro not returning messages. Feel as though the family is crumbling

Auriga, .

Mrs S, Peak District? Lovely pubs, good winter walking, towns where you can buy food invented since 1975, easy drive from London.

Had fabby day with dd yesterday, thoroughly enjoyed entering non-dry February a day early, got loads of jobs done today while ds mused quietly over his coursework (he is Dr Who, going backwards through exam changes - now doing old-style do-it-at-home coursework, it will be O levels with pre-decimal sums soon) and played on X box, all very peaceful.

MI, grr.

Auriga, that does sound a lot to cope with.

Rudy, we possibly might make it there before 6, depending on what time Stropps arrives and I get out of work...

Auriga - that's too much.

I am planning to leave work early on Friday and to get there before six.

Ahhh, back from Dublin. It was one of those lovely grown up weddings; a fairly small number of guests, vair posh hotel, fabulous multi-course meal featuring lobster, venison and a platter of five (5, V) teeny desserts, drinking and chatting into the wee small hours while a harpist played in the background. All very lovely, particularly as the groom is one of DH's oldest friends, and the nicest man you could hope to meet. We stayed in a nearby not-quite-so-posh-but-still-rather-lovely hotel, and had a couple of days doing the tourist thing in Dublin, in the sunshine (OK, the wind would cut you in two, but it was glorious). I have eaten rather more in three days than is strictly good for me.

We spent this evening collecting DCs from various temporary lodgings, and tomorrow it's back at the coalface. Boo.

Anyway, I must apologise for my absence from the thread - I lost count of the number of times in the last fortnight I've read through, started a post, then been called away to some domestic emergency or other. Or the WiFi has gone down. We've had SIL to stay, a couple of parent's evenings (GCSE options for DD1, who is such an all-rounder she can't decide what to give up), and I took a day off last week for a spa day at Champneys as a birthday treat for DM (who will be 70 tomorrow). The latter was predictably heavenly, although DM (fitness queen that she is) insisted we packed in a couple of circuits classes and a few laps of the pool before we were allowed to chillax. My abs ached for days afterwards.

Auriga, that sounds very hard to deal with. I was helped in that situation by someone insisting that my dc needed their mother to be functional, so I couldn't actually spread myself too thinly throughout the vast expanse of family. Axiomatic, I know, but still it did help. Even headspace is hard to spare when you've got dc.

I can get to the MB before six, too.

MrsS, I forgot to say how excited and impressed I was on reading that you've submitted an oeuvre to the MN Novel comp. Signed copies for Crepeys, I hope? And who will you have interviewing you at litfests? Truly impressed.

X-post, CV - glad to hear your absence was so lush!

Steady on, Molly! Mine might well be one of the ones where they read the first paragraph and bin it!

Auriga sorry to hear how tough it is - try to take some 'me' time.

CV - sounds fab.

Here I broke dry Jan with a rather nice glass of gin but have a mega headache this morning and no idea if it's the alcohol or ds's cold.....

Half term will be a couple of days in London with ds - then passing him over to the in-laws, then a couple of days back home. I still have annual leave left so think I might take a couple of days for myself.

Yes, CV - this is an S&B thread, after all!