22 Foxhole East

f0xh0les

Oh dear, we were hit with the lurgy. DS1 was sick on the top landing last night, well, 2am, so the middle of the night. He is off college today and tomorrow. He is quite shaken up by it all, as he has not been sick since he was in primary school, and he is 17 in a fortnight! Not used to this nonsense at all. So he has sipped water, and had a bath, and has returned to his bed as he says his skin feels really sensitive. What is really freaking him out is that he is not hungry (he is always hungry).

I made a huge apple crumble, and have a big soup pot full of stewed apple, with sultanas and mixed spice. It will be lovely with custard, or (soya)cream or over yoghurt for breakfast. I do not care, it is going to go and live in the freezer.

So only 3 kids on the school run tonight. I can pick up two on the normal route, but have to go back for another one at 4.30. Football practise in this weather? Insane. It is hammering down here, has been nearly all day long - I did my good deed for the day and took princess DH to work so he did not have to be soggy in his meetings. He is very tired - not much sleeping went on between 2 -4, and DH manfully got up and cleaned DS1s carpet in the middle of the night , which is unheard of, as DH does very badly with bodily fluids - I am very carefully not mentioning that DH cooked the supper last night while I was out. I am sure it is just a coincidence.

So, just prepping apples for winter. I am about 1/3 down the bag. I will be thankful in a month's time to have them lurking in the freezer.

No idea what to do for supper tonight, no idea if DS1 will be able to eat - so far he has managed half an oatcake. Poor lamb.

And Boris is a big fat liar. I have been loving the radio coverage on this. Better than any soap opera, not as good as a space opera, but as dramas go, blimey! you couldn't make this stuff up.

crazy_cat_lady

Hope that your ds is fighting fit and on the mend soon. I really think that there's some sort of unpleasant virus doing the rounds this year. I had 9 of my Year 7 class missing this morning and 10 of my year 10. DS told me that one of the classes in school only had 5 kids in one day last week (instead of usually 28) when he came home with a letter from public health England talking about good cleaning and hygiene...

f0xh0les

Was told by ds1's physic teacher he will crash and burn if he does not catch up. How much you need to catch up after 2 weeks I do not know, but he has gone from practically no homework to about an hour per night per subject . They have made the problem themselves by bad practise in the lower school. He will catch up or I will have to get a tutor. He has no idea of the difference in workload between GCSE and A level. And of course, he is doing 4 of them. So he is back in school today, his English teachers love him, they said he is a lifesaver in class, as he is vocal. yay! and he 'gets it' - no worries there. In maths he is fine, in further maths - he needs to do more work but it should at some point make his 'normal maths' easy peasy kids stuff, and physics was just, OMG get your finger out or you won't be continuing past November.
So he came home and did 2 hours work. He is too passive for his own good. I hope he does not turn into a stress-head now.

Came home just before 7pm and dh was a frazzled nutjob after coming home to 3 children and no supper ready. I am appreciated. I told them this would be how it was every night if I get a job. They took notice. They looked terrified.

DS4 was in bed when I got home, he took himself off at 5.30 dh said, complaining of feeling sick. He got up at 9.30, had a little medicinal apple crumble and custard and went back to bed. He is off school today as he descended in tears at 6.00 this morning saying he felt horrible. Bed and a book is the best place for him, I will stick him in a nice bubble bath later on and see if he perks up.

So I had to cancel my volunteering this afternoon (90 minutes of adult conversation gone! ), and I am stuck in the house for the day. So I will get on with the laundry while the weather is only showers.
We lost a slate tile off the roof this week. Does not bode well. Will keep an eye on the attic bedrooms.

Renovations budget on my part is currently £9,100
On his part it is about £5,000 (he just paid the final balance on his new tooth).
Can you give someone a roof for Xmas? Is that a good present? The thing is, I quite fancy dormer-ing the back attic bedroom window, and putting skylights in the front attic bedroom ceilings. While the scaffold is up I could get the original fires working as the chimneys would be readily accessible, and I could get the windows properly sealed and rendered and the outside of the house painted.

That would get most of the front of the house sorted - our house is a terrace return - it is L shaped- and that could all happily be done this year, as well as the woodworm and damp proofing.

I think I need to cut the house into two in my mind. Get the front of the house done asap, and then get the back of the house - back roof, the bathroom/kitchen/ chimney removed/ walls knocked down/ extension booked in to be done 2020. I need to save like a crazy person, I mean, I can't be having a leaking roof! Also, I need to change to another mortgage deal in March - looks like the mortgage interest rates are going down - might get a decent 2 year fix.

The heating is still firmly off and the house is still warm. I asked the kids and they say they are still warm at night and in their bedrooms.

I have been googling mid terrace extensions / side return extensions and I have found some great ideas I really like, and had not considered. It will give DH the size of kitchen he would love to have but has not considered possible, I have even found the kind of glass roof style I want. I do feel a lot better about it, but I would feel even better if I knew how to find a 'proper' builder. I am going to ask around at the school gates - they say you should go on a personal recommendation. Bit hard when you don't really know anyone!

crazy_cat_lady

Hope that DS4 is feeling better and the lurgy is not spreading through the house to everyone. Shame DS1s physics teacher isn't a bit more supportive - hope he gets caught up (I was awful at A level physics in spite of it being my favourite GCSE subject).
And sorry that you didn't manage to get any adult conversation - I honestly know how important that is...

f0xh0les

Poor baby spent the whole day either in bed, or lolling in the bath, he had a couple of dry crackers for lunch, a couple of ginger nuts at 3pm, and lots of juice. He has not been sick, but he is definitely not right. So home he stays.

DS2 is 15 tomorrow and is being a toad. His brothers are all refusing to get him anything for his birthday as he is usually so horrid. He has brought it on himself. He has little presents from me and dh, but he will mostly get money as he does not really want anything - another one that still has money left over from the old people over the summer holidays. They do not spend money!
DS1 got a text from his bank to say it was all going through nicely and he will have his card sometime this week. At last!

DS1 and 3 went off and did science club after school - DS1 as a helper and DS3 as a little sciencebunny. Then they sat in the kitchen with ds4 and chatted to me while I made their supper really quickly with practically every leftover in the fridge repurposed. We ended up with Jamie's cauliflower cheese pizza, a sourdough loaf made into a normal pizza, and a massive veg stew that will do my lunch tomorrow and probably end up in the freezer to make an appearance when ds4 turns his nose up at whatever it is everyone elsle likes.

I have £95 still in the budget. Payday is Tuesday. 4 days to go. Food in the house. I hope I can end the month with most of that money still in the account.

f0xh0les

What an odd sort of day today was.
Could not motivate myself at all, stayed in bed for an extra hour and a half - got up at 7.30, did the washing up, put a load of washing on, wrote a list of stuff to do, and had a lovely coffee, then all motivation left my body. What was the point? Really? So did nothing but read tat on emails and look at nonsense on fakebook. Lunch was leftovers from last night. Watched the football at 3pm, then went upstairs, totally rearranged DS1s bedroom, then DS4s bedroom, cleaned, cleared, reduced all DS1s tat and nonsense, he had school spellings books from 9 years ago! Got rid of everything, went through the books on his shelves, took some of it to his brothers, recycled masses of paper - 4 whole sacks of the stuff.

Listed loads of things on the local 'waste not' site, tv unit, storage boxes, hair dye, booster seats for the car, plenty of stuff will be leaving the house tomorrow.

Someone has listed old floorboards nearby, so will nip by early in the morning and measure and see if they will fit in our bay window. That would be another job done.

Hopefully the rest of the listed stuff will prove popular tomorrow. The back room has filled up again. I will not list the clothes, they can all go in a sack to the charity shop on Monday. Stuff has to leave this house.

Tomorrow I will bake, try and make do with what we have as much as possible - I do need some crisps and fruit for lunchboxes on Monday - finish the laundry, finish off the kids bedrooms, and hoover all three floors, and wait for money to hit my bank account on Tuesday. So limbo until payday really.

The heating is still off. Next week may see frosts! I can't believe how warm it has been. The kids are usually complaining for the last week of September about putting the heating on, but there is none of that so far. Bodes well for the half term holidays in two weeks, I am looking forward to it. Even if DH can only come away for 3 days, it will be nice. I will be brave and abandon him and DS1 and take the other 3 off to the beach. Walking on a windy cold beach is therapeutic too, no doubt.

Right, had enough of today's weirdness.

Time for bed.

crazy_cat_lady

Half term in 2 weeks???
I am 4 weeks away from that joy

f0xh0les

We break on the 11th CCL, then Xmas hols is 20th December for 17 days.



Nipped out in the soggy rain and robbed floorboards from the man's front garden - he did not even cover them with cardboard, so they are drying the back room, I will woodworm treatment them and put them in the bay window so there is not a 1cm drop between the old floorboard depth and the badly repaired bodge job ones.

So now I am sitting in and waiting for the people to come and pick up their 'new to them' bits and bobs.

Ooh look! Boris has had a haircut! He is trying to look more professional.

Right, more coffee and politics and hopefully the doorbell with go soon.

kerri_gt

Sometimes you need a 'rest' day...though your rest day sounds pretty busy to me still.

Heating still firmly off here too, long may it stay that way, no sign of frost either.

Can't believe October is nearly upon us already.

f0xh0les

I must confess to having the tumble dryer on for the school uniforms. I hate having to do that. It has been on less than 10 times since April.

Second cup of coffee drunk, DS3 beat his PB again (dh is running with him- he can cope at child pace, but still has to wear his full lycra kit:rotfl:) so he is down to 2km in 11.44 - stopping twice to tie his shoes - DH is horrified how slow they are.:rotfl:. He will whip them into shape. No doubt he will be sub 11 very soon.

I have had the first text from 'the collectors' he will be here in 20 minutes. It is my fault, I do not count after 11 as 'morning', so when people say 'I can collect tomorrow morning', I kind of assume 8-10. None of the other 'morning collectors' have contacted me yet. Quelle surprise!

I can always leave DH as guardian of the hallway pile, bit of a step down from the galaxy, but there you go.