Proportional Crepresentation

[Cremolafoam]

There you go lovelies

Auriga, can I suggest Doing Nothing With A Racy Novel? If you need to feel sense of purpose I'll send you my draft and you can give me feedback.

Going to try to prop self up at the desk. Now have both galloping IBS and indigestion. It's quite interesting in its way.

Ooh yes, I'd love to read your draft MI

Drop me an email and I'll send it to you! Am already embarked on next draft (PHEW, I hear you all exhale after my weeping and whingeing) but would love to know what you think and you can download the PDF to a kindle and put your feet up with it.

Auriga I hope you're recovering from the near miss. I expect you're still very angry with DH but it can happen to any of us. Trouble is I guess we lose confidence in them and don't feel safe as a passsenger. A few days on the sofa with a great book is a good idea.

herbs I hope you're recovering from quite a heavy party by the sounds of it!

I am back in the hospital canteen weeping into my tea and croissant, having not just gotten through my annual check up but having also been discharged... after 14 years in remission the doc thought it was time. I feel cast adrift, like I have lost my lifeline to a certain extent and although I rarely even mention my illness, and I am to all intents and purposes "cured", I will always be a cancer patient inside my head. It robbed me of some of the best years of my life but is also part of it iyswim.
Strange times. I would normally have a quiet day after the check up but I now have to take DM to an appointment in Harley street so cannot focus on self too much. Perhaps this is s good thing.

Rose

It must be very odd. Especially when other elements of identity are so hard for many of us.

You are, and always will be, a cancer survivor. Along with being a strong, clever funny gorgeous woman and an amazing friend. An achiever and a survivor in so many ways.

Hooray for Rose! There is always that worry when you go along, so brilliant that they have discharged you. The wife of someone I worked for had breast cancer and was in remission for five years when it raised its ugly ahead again at one of her check ups. She had the other breast removed and has now been in remission for ten years. She was one of those women with horrific breast cancer history in her family. Anyway, so pleased for you.

Auriga, sorry to hear about the car accident with DH, and I hope you will be feeling better soon. I think it's probably more a case of a wandering mind than poor eye sight, tbh, unless he is having trouble reading, etc.

Hatty, a belated Happy Bir bday to you; your day sounds lovely.

MI, glad to hear that you got through yesterday ok.

Reasons to be cheerful:

1. My team are champions of the EFL Championship: what an amazing afternoon. DS took his DD (almost 5) who has been agitating to go, so she used grandad's seat. If you could have seen her face when the team were presented with the trophy, bless her she hadn't got a clue what was going on, but she was enjoying the atmosphere.

1. DH is home tomorrow

1. I have just arranged for us to meet friends for lunch on Wednesday.

I hope Herbs is feeling better today.

Just remembered: was it you, BTM, who is going to Barcelona? There is a programme about the arts there on BBC4 tomorrow night, I think.

Sorry you are feeling so ambivalent, Rose, though it's not surprising. Hope you'll be able to feel some relief as well, once the strangeness wears off.

I have cleared the porch for the decorator, who has now texted to say he's not coming. Nothing for it now but to sort out all the shoes, boots, dog towels, odd gloves, gardening implements and nameless crap. I envisage a welcoming mini-haven with delicate scents of orange blossom, trailing greenery and a mat that says oh no not you again

Auriga - grr about decorator.

Rose - it's great news really but I can understand the lifeline thing. Once the initial feeling wears off I hope you can celebrate a little.

Here, another bank holiday - going to walk on the Champs with DH and finish with a coffee and a browse at WH Smiths.

Rose, . I too hope you feel relieved in time but it is very understandable that you feel odd now - you have been living with this for a long time.

Auriga, that does sound quite satisfying, as long as you can then retire to sofa!

NU, love your description of your dgd throwing herself into it!

I have no experience, Rose, but I have a number of friends who are on the 'annual check up' system.

From what I see, you work yourself up into a 'Hmm - it could be bad, so I'll prepare for the worst' - and then end up tumbling out of hospital hardly able to grasp the brilliant news.

Cut yourself some slack. Sort out DM, and let the good news sink in. You have become the person you are, because of what you've been through. And no doubt better and stronger as a result

In other news, DH was off to colder climes to fish all of next week. I was going to take some time to go through our paperwork quietly, with a view to seeing a lawyer, knowing that I had a clear 6 days.

Trip has now been cancelled as the river in the colder climes has yet to defrost.

So not only am I back on duty, we have a fishing friend to stay all week next week. Yay. Catering and hostessing. My favourite.

Cloud, wouldn' t they rather go off to Scotland or somewhere and fish there? There's plenty more fish in the sea...

Had a great time last night, thanks so much to GGG and MrsS. Wonderful, wonderful.

Rose, I wonder if it's what Olympic athletes sometimes describe - a kind of melancholy after winning the top medal? Take it easy today and buy something lovely, I would.

Rose I can imagine how cast adrift you feel despite it being for a positive reason. Hope your DM duty takes your mind off it.

Cloud, surely there are other rivers to fish in - have they not thought of that?

Glad GGGs evening was a success!

Thanks Crepeys. Xxx

I am sitting in a very plush waiting room whilst DM has her hearing test. So far so good. Kind of. I am chilled at the moment looking out onto the loveliness of Regents Park across the way. dM has complained that the magazines on offer in the waiting room don't include Good Housekeeping.. . Other than that not too much moaning. Yet.

I'm with your DM Rose. So glad the dd's can go into their optician appointments on their own now so I can read GH.

Also, I would feel all kinds of strange/abandoned in your shoes.

Sorry, Hatty. Forget to say Happy Birthday! Hope this is a good year for you.

at GH (I get it too, though not for the SnB!)

Oh. My. God. I have had the day from HELL.

Didn't sleep well, despite hangover, as fretting about today.

First lesson - Huge Romanian just caused havoc, and the rest of them weren't much better. All talking at once, getting up, writing on the board, etc. I'd put their names on the board - they'd rub them off. Couldn't work out the register. Then they told me they had a second period with me. As I couldn't work the system, I believed them. But no. They just preferred to be with me than their usual lessons. That bit went OK, though I had to wing it, as we did maths which they seemed to like.

After lunch, the Worst Little Shite was saying rude words, goading another boy, etc etc, and eventually started a fight. I sent him out. Sighs of relief from other pupils.

Line manager, who usually takes these classes with me, was supposedly on a school trip. But he didn't turn up. For a while I was all worried - he seemed very stressed and in a bad mood on Friday (which I had assumed was me being shit) - but then heard he often bunks off on a Monday with no reason given. I am praying that a) he's in tomorrow, and b) he isn't about to leave. I am not paid enough to put up with the shite I had to today.

I seem to have reached that point in a new job when the veil is drawn back and you see the cracks.

Herbs it sounds like you managed admirably. Well done you! The kids are clearly responding to you if they wanted to stay with you. Good to kick out the WLS - divide and conquer!
And you did it without you line manager so now they know that you don't need to go running for help at the first sign of a crisis.

They will be hard work and push you all the time but you have proved that you can do it. With. A. Hangover!

Not sure they wanted to be with me, rather they didn't want to be in a mainstream lesson, but thank you for encouraging words! It was all I could do not to cry this morning.

Have gone off teens here too. DD1 declares she will be "out all the time" post-exams and thus unavailable for such things as putting a wash on (currently excused for exams). That would be "out all the time after getting up", then.

MI, that sounds par for the course along with festival!

Crumbs, Herbs, I couldn't do your job. I'd be permanently enraged, yet ineffectual. It sounds like you handled it well, though.

'Enraged but ineffectual' just about sums it up, CV! I was shaking by the end of the first lesson. But I prevailed, and even taught them something - the difference between sixTEEN and sixTY.

Yeah, that's about the top and bottom of it, MI .

Herbs - words fail me.

Herbs - well done indeed - it's bad enough when our unruly 8 year olds are like this. I cannot imagine deaing with teenage shits - I'd probably have cried. There should be a medal 'survived a difficult class' or something