So the Reading Festival is now truly underway and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers are about to perform any minute now. Parents of 16 year old’s around the country will be dealing with an eerie silence and a slightly sick […]
So the A’level results come out this Thursday and the GCSE results the following Thursday and there are a lot of nails being bitten and unsettled families as the waiting nears it’s end. Firstly, GOOD LUCK TO ALL – I […]
My son has finished his GCSE’s. WOOHOO My daughter’s leg is bending and straightening and she’s beginning to walk without the crutches which is great My other son has come back from watching a football match in France in one […]
What a shame that London Wine Week clashes with London Whine Week in my house – the biggest week of our year in terms of important exams – my youngest has one if not two exams every day this week […]
So the Office for National Statistics have found that respondents in the 40-59 age bracket have the lowest levels of satisfaction and the highest levels of anxiety. Middle age stress abounds and happiness has dropped off the richter scale for […]
PRINCE is dead. At the age of 57. What is going on? Victoria Wood, also much too young, died yesterday and I’m wondering whether there has been an abnormal number of deaths this year already amongst the musicians or whether […]
“Children in a family are like flowers in a bouquet: there’s always one determined to face in an opposite direction from the way the arranger desires.” Marcelene Cox Not sure who Marcelene Cox is, but I finally totally understand what […]
Oh. So my daughter's GCSE's have actually FINISHED today. Seemingly about a month earlier than everybody else's. I don't know how that's happened...
So. I've segued effortlessly from being anxious and worried about her exams to being anxious and worried about her not having exams. Because. Now it is of course time to celebrate and that in itself brings all sorts of other worries.
She's now with her friends and of course she has forgotten to text me to tell me how the exam went. Instead of having a stressed daughter in the house I'm going to have a relaxed daughter out of the house. Which is worse???
SO hot today. All the deer in the park were under the trees cooling down whilst all the mad Englishmen were directly in the sun:- 
My daughter is on the brink of abusing my new found role as an Alpha mummy. This morning, before her English GCSE she actually demanded scrambled egg on toast in bed and because she has done such a good job […]
ARGHGHGHGHGHHGHG. One of those mornings. My daughter’s first written GCSE exam today and for some reason I barely slept. I’m so nervous for her which is ridiculous because this morning she seems fine. I even had a dream about trying […]
I'm exhausted after my party weekend away.....all those 50 year olds pretending to be teenagers. It is not good. Great fun at the time, but we just don't recover our faculties very quickly these days and I look as if I have aged 10 years. Taught a class yesterday which went unusually wrong towards the end - ten minutes before the end when everyone was lying on the floor doing their breathing exercises there was an almighty rumble and a whole load of rubble fell out of the fireplace and into the room. A cloud of orange dust meant that breathing exercises became untenable. HARDLY RELAXING. I had to evacuate the room and suggest that everybody continued with their breathing in the main road. Slightly worryingly the class were delighted to be finishing early. "Saved by the soot" said one of my lovely longstanding clients..... I have been feeling anxious since coming back into the country. There is much to worry about. My daughter has her first GCSE on Friday and the increasing tension is tangible. I have financial worries, school worries AND now teenage son worries. He told me he was going on a coach along the East Coast of Vietnam and it would take 36 hours. I have just heard from another source that in fact they are going to be hiring motorbikes a la Jeremy Clarkson's trip and do it in WAY less time. It's so dangerous though. I feel sick.
What a spectacular disaster. I am up for a travel blogger award BUT am so far removed from anything vaguely resembling a travel blogger it's a joke. Guess what just happened. I've been invited to go to America on a blog trip. ALL EXPENSES PAID!!!! To a gorgeous location. Which would have been perfect because as a travel blogger, it is sort of important to be able to travel. Whilst it's never easy to get away - as a single mother of three children it's even harder. Even with the help of family and friends there is a lot of juggling to be done, but of course I could make it work. I HAD TO. Then. I looked at the dates. Heart sinking moment followed by brain persuading me it was all going to be fine. Talked to as many people as I could find who were going to agree that I should go. Then some others who thought I probably shouldn't but I knew in my heart that I was going to have to decline the invitation. The trip is right in the middle of my daughter's GCSE's. I'm sure she's going to do just as well without me....but what if something went wrong - what if she wasn't fed and watered properly or somebody else forgot to pick her up for school or she was stressy and needed a hug/cup of tea/new mascara/reassuring words/a laugh/a chat/a clean skirt/a sharp pencil/a person to test her/.....that's my job. I can do all those things. Not very well. But nevertheless, you can't underestimate that sort of support when you need it. How grown up is that? I am having a proper grown up mother moment interspersed with angry little tantrum like sparks for the unfairness of life sometimes (picture Rumplestiltskin). However, aside from the blog - which of course shouldn't be dictating the entire focus of my life - my responsibilities as a mother are top of the list - anyway, essentially I'm a family blogger - "FAMILY AFFAIRS AND OTHER MATTERS" - it would be a little inappropriate to ignore the "FAMILY" element at this point. So there we are then. That is probably the last invitation I will ever get. Oh well. Such is life. Right decision made on this occasion.
