Up, up and away.......

Well it's up, although some may say I am too early but who cares.  I like to have it in situ by 1st December but I must admit come about the 27th I'm bored of looking at it so it usually gets packed away early!

I love the build up to Christmas probably more then the day it's self, my Dad always used to say straight after Christmas day dinner...."Well, that's Christmas done with for another year", so I like to milk the good feeling as long as I can.

Been very busy at work recently, lots going on - some hush hush which means changes afoot.  I don't like working in this environment but I guess I'll be told when I need to be.

I'm trying to be a bit more organised this year, presents are pretty much done and dusted - although I still keep adding little bits here and there...tut, tut I hear you say :)  I've just placed my Christmas grocery order for delivery on 21/12.  That way, if they are out of stock of anything I can still get the items from the local shops...see, not totally daft me.  I've had the wreath for my Mum's grave in my car for a couple of days, I just need to go to the cemetery now....This I struggle with as It really upsets me, another reason why  I need to go on my own so I down upset the children too much :(

Alex played at the local Band Festival on Monday evening.  He's not really learning to play a musical instrument as such but he does have a lesson each week at school which is currently with a trumpet.  We were originally told that he was just going to the rehearsal in the daytime for the experience and would not be performing at the show in the evening.  I didn't think anymore of it as I guessed this sounded about right so I didn't buy a ticket for the evening performance.  At the rehearsals in the daytime a teacher overheard him talking to another child saying that he would not see them in the evening as he wasn't taking part in the performance..at which the teacher went absolutely ape at him calling his attitude appalling, which as you can imagine, upset Alex very much and even reduced him to tears.  Thankfully I was able to buy a ticket when I collected him from the rehearsals and I will be bringing the matter up with his school.  This is now about the 4th different matter I am having to bring to the schools attention.  So, to say I am less then impressed with them at the moment is an understatement.

Thankfully, Becky is still in good spirits so her mood has been a good one most evenings.  She's had a couple of exams this month and still has one to do next week.  She was given the opportunity to apply for a mentor from one of the London universities.  Only 2 children were successful, one of them being Becky!  She has had lots of chats with her new buddy who is in her final year as a medical student and she still seems keen to go into medicine but as I said to her nothing is set in stone.

My daughter left me with a compliment this morning - she said I had a good boob to bum ratio but now I think of it, it probably wasn't a compliment after all considering I am rather top heavy....Grrrrrrrrrrr!

Hope your week is going well.

Sue x x x

Life's a ball..........

Well, in the end I decided it was too early to put up my Christmas Tree last weekend. Instead, it will be erected next weekend....Ooooeeeerrr vicar!

This week I have been mostly ordering Prom dresses for Becky to try on for her Prom in the new year.  The school have not set a date for it yet but it could be as early as next January.  I can't see why they are being so cagey about the whole thing, I mean they must know now when they are planning to hold it. I'm guessing they will use the "If you misbehave you will not go to the ball" card with the children.

It looks as if it's going to be a strapless purple and black little number - and if I may say so myself...she looks a right little stunner in it :)

I had to pop to the shops for some milk earlier.  Are you guys like me I wonder - I always have to have a little look in other peoples baskets or trolleys to see what they are buying. 
Nosey moo, that's me. 
There was a large sized chap walking towards me with his arms full of food and I happen to catch site of a large box of donuts.  Immediately I thought he shouldn't be eating those the greedy guts.  Then I thought why am I thinking this, I mean I'm no beanpole (but I wish I was).  Terrible really isn't it how we seem to judge people.  For all I know they may have been for his sick Auntie, or for a friend.

Nah, who am I kidding, he's probably sat at home now scoffing the whole box.

Good for him I say!

Sue x x x

5 weeks guys, that's all.........

I've just done my tally up and I can confirm that we have just 5 weeks till the big guy in the red suit with a white beard pays us a visit.

So, I ask myself...is it too early to put the Christmas tree?

What do you think?

I asked at work and the general consensus was "Are you taking the pee, of course it's too early"

So I think it's best if I leave it another week.

Alex will be 11 on Boxing Day.  He actually still thinks Father Christmas might be real.  I know this as he is always asking me how it's possible for such a large person to actually fit down a chimney, and how on earth can he give presents to every child in the world on Christmas Eve.  So, I say to him what do you think Alex, if you would like him to be real then he is.  We got the stockings out of the cupboard and I asked him if he's not sure if he exists do we need to bother to hang them up this year then?  He said he didn't want to risk not putting them up just in case he did come to our house......bless him!


Nearly done all my Christmas shopping now, only some odds and sods to get.  It looks as if it is just going to be us again this year on Christmas day as my in laws are being anti-social again and would rather go up the pub and then stagger to their friends house for more drinks and my Dad is just happy to be sat at home alone as he finds this time of year depressing without Mum being here.

But do you know what, I really, really don't give a hoot as this means we will have a lovely relaxing day just pleasing ourselves.

Not a lot planned for the weekend, I've had a bad headache for the last day but thankfully it's just lifting.  Might pop to Costco on Sunday to pick up some lovely Lillies, they sell 10 stems with at least 5 heads on each stem for £4.50....a real bargain in my books....they also make a mean latte to!

Take care

Sue x x x x

T.G.I.F.

Is it me or has this week gone really fast? I don't know, I seem to go to bed Sunday night and the next thing I know it's Friday. Must be an age thing as the children reckon it's going too slow for them :-)


This morning as we were trying you get out the front door for work/school, madam decided to play up. We had an exchange of words and she told me that she didn't need me anymore.

Fair dos I thought. So I told her she could walk to school then. Now being the lazy minx she is, she decided to get one over me by taking the car keys and sitting in the car. Suddenly, she came back in the house as she'd forgotten one of her school books and ran up to her bedroom with my keys in her hand.

I had a plan. All of the sudden I felt like a naughty school girl and I knew there would be consequences but I just couldn't stop myself.

I picked up the spare set of keys and legged it to the car, started it up and waited for her to appear at the door. The front door opened and she stood on the doorstep - staring at me in the car. With that, I put my foot down and shot off down the road., without her but with her school bag. The look on her face as I drove by was priceless.

Now, I know it was a very childish thing for me to do but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

Obviously, I parked at the end of the road and waited for her to get in the car, and got a mouthful of abuse but today it didn't matter.

She's fine this evening about it but I still have a little giggle as I remember the look on her face!

Have a great weekend.

Sue x x x

Farewell old friend....

This weekend was spent at our caravan as it was time to shut it up for the winter. We left home Saturday afternoon, although we had hoped to leave earlier but Becky put a stop to that...again.  She was all up for coming with us Friday eve but come Saturday morn it started again.

"Don't think I'm coming with you"
"I'm staying here, I'm 15 now, you can trust me"

Unfortunately, we can't trust her, so we arranged for to go to her Grandma's.  After 2 hours of refusing to leave her room she decided she would come with us after all.  I had a feeling we would pay for this somehow and I'm proud to say she didn't let us down.  She was a right little minx, awkward as hell.

We spent a few hours at the clubhouse for the farewell party in the evening but because Becky wouldn't come with us and as our part of the site was deserted and most of the street lighting had been turned off we decided to head back to the van around 9.30pm.  Neither of us are big drinkers, and to be honest I was so cold all I wanted was a cuppa.  Boy was it cold in the van.  I went to bed with my trackie bottoms on, a tee-shirt, socks and a hoodie and I was still freezing!

One of the couples (Ian & Emma) that we are friendly with thought it was terrible that she wouldn't come out with us, so I said well what can you do she's 15 now.  So on went this debate about how we are too soft on her and that we should punish her.  I said we did and explained that she would loose time on the Internet at home but they thought we were not hard enough on her.

This got my back up but I decided to bite my tongue.  Ian is the step dad to Emma's14 year old daughter and feels that it is right to punish her over what I judge as petty things - she lost her mobile for a month for being cheeky to her Mum.  What 14 year old isn't cheeky to their Mum! He was implying that it was our fault that she behaved the way she did.  So, I explained that I felt that as she is in the final year at school, revising for her 10 GCSE's and getting excellent grades (last batch 5 x A* and 4 x A) that now was not the time to make an enemy of her and that she needed us to be there for her, not against her.  She plans to go to College and has even picked out the Uni in London that she wants to attend to become a surgeon.  They are also not aware of the spate of self harming that we had to deal with earlier this year.

But what really got me was the fact that his 8 year old (aka the Princess who is both of theirs) can't do anything wrong in Daddy's eyes.....in fact the sunshine's out of her backside.

I know that it is up to the parent how to punish their child for bad behavior, and maybe I am a bit soft.  I grew up with being smacked/hit for bad behavior.  My older sisters would get the belt, I would often get the slipper.  This all made me very fearful of my Dad and didn't really help our relationship.  If I'm honest it probably caused the start of my own confidence/body issues as a teen that triggered my eating disorder.  So because of this I am always very careful with what I say and how I say things to Becky.  Dad would call me 'Big Tits' or say I was fat.  He said that he was only saying these things to prepare me for the big wide world as sometimes people say upsetting things, needless to say I have not taken a leaf out of his book.

So Sunday morning, we packed up the car with all our belongings and pretty much said farewell to our old friend, the caravan.  We've handed total ownership over to Wayne's Mum and Dad and they are prepared to keep it on for themselves.  Obviously, if we want to we can stay there for a holiday but I think that is going to be unlikely now.  The children have outgrown it, got bored with it and to an extent so have we.  We've had 6 years of fun from it but it's now time to move on.

Any how changing the subject completely.....we only had flipping maggots in our wheelie bin on Friday - November... can you believe it, just shows how mild it was last week.

Hope you all have a great week

Take care.

Sue x x x

Take it or leave it I say.......

As I mentioned in a earlier post, we have really pushed the boat out next year and booked an all inclusive foreign holiday for us all next July.  So we now need to think about saving for it.

Today, hubby decided to go down to the high street to open a holiday savings account.  We printed off the application forms and both completed the required information.

First stop, Santander aka Abbey aka The Abbey National (now I'm giving my age away!) .  The sign on the door says open at 10am.  It's 10 to 10, so hubby decides to wait in the queue for it to open.  5 past 10 and it's still not open.  Suddenly someone appears and decides to open the door - no sorry for keeping you waiting or anything like that.  Hubby gets in the queue again to see a customer advisor.  At last he's seen but told that she can't help him and he needs to see another person.  So, he waits for this person to come onto the floor. 

He comes over and askes hubby what he can do for him, he explains that he would like open a savings account.  He asks hubby if has an appointment.  Hubby says no, and explains that he has completed all the relevant paperwork.  He tuts and says that he really needs to make an appointment for these sort of things and tells him that he'll have to sit down and wait and he'll see what he can do but he's very busy. 

My husband is a patient man but this really rattled his cage.  You'd think in this current financial climate any bank would welcome a customer with a wad of notes in their fist wouldn't you.  With this, hubby stands up and tells the young advisor that he has decided to take his money elsewhere and leaves to go across the road to the Nationwide aka used to be a building society but now dabbling in banking but still a small fish.

He goes in to the branch and is greeted by a huge smile and a hello, how can I help you today.  She was more then happy for him to complete the paperwork then and there, he made a deposit and left with his brand new savings book in hand. A statisfied customer.

It's the little things in life that make a difference isn't it.  It annoys me that the 'big boys' just assume you'll go to them and they are not prepared to make the effort.  Many moons ago when I worked in retail for a large department store it was drilled into us that 'Customer is King'...sadly it appears nowadays that this is no longer the case.

Have a great week.

Sue x x x x