Maybe yours and mine could run away together?

Dd sang a song in a sch assembly once. It went a bit like this:


'we're going this way, that way
forwards and backwards,
over the Irish Sea.
A bottle of rum
to fill my tum
Oh that's the life for me'


Maybe that would also help...

Yes! I have always known I should become a pirate. Good suggestion
.
I know someone with a parakeet. It might dress up as a parrot for me.

Just not in the mood today.

The heat stole my energy and my motivation, it left behind resentment and annoyance. The kids are in holiday mode. They are completely daft at the moment.
World Cup fever is not helping the two younger ones. Only a week and a half left until the summer holidays. I need to get all the woodwork painted before they finish.

Terrified of spending money at the moment, as I have too many unknowns this month. Silly, as I have £700 in the budget, plus c/b, and ctc , so really I have £1000 in the budget for the month. Why suddenly am I anxious about buying so much as a loaf of bread? Oh well, maybe I will finish the month off with a huge surplus.

Tomorrow is to be spent painting woodwork, which is just as intereting as it sounds. I will not be watching it dry. That much it can do on its own.

Tidied round the bathroom, put in a shelfing unit in one corner, and have all the towels on it now. It looks good. Need more towels though. Will keep looking in MAXX-TK and other stores.

I think I am just impatient. Tomorrow will be better.

Good Morning!

Well yesterday's painting exploits went really well. I got masses done and it is actually staying white this time instead of the nasty brown somehow bleeding through and making it a bit streaky.

Bike wall hanging shelf-y thing arrived yesterday so might get DHs bike out of the hallway and on to the wall out of the way. At least I will stop bumping into it if it is up in the air.

Hoovered the whole house from bottom to top (radical!!) after picking up the kids from school, so most of their bedrooms are tidy as well.

This time next week will be the last day of term. That is my deadline, that is my goal to aim for. Getting as much stuff done and out of the way before they break up.

Going to get another tv today from the 2nd hand place. The main tv is starting to make a buzzing noise (eeeek!), Should not be more than about £70 for a decent size one. Then there should not be kids walking up and down stairs with my bedroom tv and arguing about who needs it next and how everything in the world is so unfair.

There was someone in 'the cannabis house' next door yesterday. I was hanging out the washing in the back yard, why waste all this sunshine? The sheets are off the bed fortnightly, all the towels are run through at least once a week. and I heard the back door open, a footstep, and then quite quickly it closed again. Saw a swift glimpse of the back of a man's head. No hello, nothing. The house has mostly been empty for over a year now. - one night 9 men slept there and disappeared at 6.00 the next morning. They never returned...... very odd. Mind you, nobody has been in to fix the damage caused by the hydroponic 'renovations' so it is basically a shell. I have a feeling they left a few windows on the middle floor open in the hope that someone will come and squat in it so they can claim on the insurance to tart it up. Basically the house next door is owned by crims. They are absent at the minute, let's hope they keep it that way.

I have really missed the football the last two nights. I watched Maigret at the crossroads one night, which was really good and I had not seen it. I found we have more new freeview channels! Still not much on though!

So, having used up two half pots of white paint, and then rediscovering the full tin I bought a few weeks ago, today will be..... wait for it....... painting skirting boards and coving day!!!!! yay!!!!!! Well at least I am now on the ground floor. That deserves celebrating. And I need to think about rehauling some furniture in the back room (which is the dumping ground at the moment - even the hamster has been dumped in there - I need to clean the poor beastie's cage today or tomorrow, and bring him back into the living room as soon as the fumes disperse.
Would be a shame to have a skirting board related fatality !
I would never hear the end of it.

Got a phone call at the start of the week from step-gran asking me to get her some vest tops as she is too warm, and then to send them to her pdq. as she needs them. I was a bit annoyed at this really. Considering there is a T0sc0 3 miles away, and she is getting the highest rate of DLA, which takes into consideration transport, and taxis etc, she is basically now living the life of a recluse by choice. She is going to get to the point where she is too scared/lazy to leave the house at all. She really is doing herself no favours and is determined to wallow in 'poor me' land. Her last carers got really annoyed with her, and her attitude. She basically refuses to engage with any kind of social activity, even if someone were to come to the house and pick her up and take her to a daycare centre, she just does not want to , and then complains loudly to everyone about how lonely she is.

Her silence for a week probably means she has been planning her list of stuff for me to do while I am there.

DH has still not asked his parents when is convienient to visit - I am sick of being told to come anytime, and then having to listen to m-i-l going on about how disappointed she is at having had to cancel things because we are there. lose/lose situation.

Right, kids on a go-slow this morning, and 2 have had to have baths as they decided to use a rubber stamp on themselves last night, after being sent to bed, in ORANGE!! Gah!
Nobody wants to go to school - it is going to be a hard job this morning.

Have a great day and remember - white emulsion also works as sunscreen!

So you don't have freckles, you have bits of skin where the paint didn't cover it and the sun got through!

I think that would look more giraffe-y, which is definitely a look,
but not necessarily one I would go for.

Although safari print is supposed to be 'in' this summer. I would be frightened of people in khaki popping up from behind potted plants trying to 'bag' a tiger/zebra/leopard ( daytime tv while I am painting is rotting my brain).

Right, paintbrush is calling. Wish me luck.....

I bought the old style wood paint!! The one that smells forever by accident.
Took quite a while to dry in this heat.
Does look good though.

Also bought another tv to replace the smashed one. So, £80 for a good sized tv for the living room, the living room tv has gone on holiday into my bedroom, the kids have robbed my bedroom tv for their xbox, so that is in the back room, and DS1 robbed my old 'kitchen' tiny tv for his room x box - the aerial on the top floor stopped working - need to get a man in to sort that at some point. also no tv aerial in the kitchen so that was why he was ok to rob it - well, he asked if he could borrow it and never gave it back.

Going to do the food shopping this morning and head to the market,
DH is taking DS3 & 4 swimming (! )
DS3 is off to a birthday party later - right in the middle of the England match
Couple of loads of laundry and line dry
Going to do an inventory of the back room and move stuff about a bit. Figure out which furniture can be used and which can be moved on (so hard to do !) But I shall be ruthless until this house looks like a house. Thing is, what does 'my house' look like?

The living room window sills are now sparkly white instead of dark brown and the change is massive. It is like the room is 2 feet wider already. While painting the skirting boards I found 3 small holes...... don't know if they are recent or historic. Will slap a bit of killer on later and monitor the situation. I really don't need woodworm. The kitchen was riddled with it, so I stripped all the skirts out of there - it will need hacking back to brick and replastered in there anyway probably with a new damp course. But that has a concrete floor.
The living room is floorboard under the carpet. Fingers crossed. Will investigate further later. I have a tin of the killer anyway somewhere out back, so it will be no cost either way, Unless they have been very busy beetles...

If they are active you will see dust.

Plenty of laundry done today.
Even throws and some curtains I unearthed.

Nothing diy-ish done this weekend, just clearing and sorting stuff. Hoovering and tidying, Keeping away from pollen and trying to keep cool.

Last week of term is looming! Trying to pin DH down on when to visit his parents, he is having to fly out, and oddly, it seems as if I am driving the kids to Liverpool on the Wednesday night for the overnight crossing, and picking him up at 10am at the airport on the Thursday morning! Bl00dy man!! Then dropping him back at an airport 3 days later and carrying back on my way up to the North with the kids.
Oh well, it will get it over and done with and back at home with all the visiting done by midday on the 1st August.

2 trips to theme parks for the eldest 2 this week. All the after school clubs finish on Tuesday, and we are away Sunday night for a trip to the National Forest, which looks to be about 40 minutes away, but was all planned before I knew when we were going away to Ireland.

Anyway. Mr Hamster is going to be fine on his own for 3 days, i will clean out his cage the day before and do the fresh water thing and hide food in his cage for him, give him a new cardboard tube to destroy, and a few tissues to shred, and a lot of chew toys. He has his wheel, and his activity centre and he has a 4 storey cage with tunnels to run about in. He is in the shade away from the windows, and should be perfectly happy as he is a geriatric hamster at 22 months old (lifespan 16-24 months) and nocturnal anyway. Possibly not the best choice of a kids pet! But I adore him. He is a character and loves his zorb ball.

He made it into the kitchen today, he has never done that before. He usually sticks to the front room and the hallway, but he was zipping about all around the back room too, and came to find me in the kitchen while I was folding laundry.

Lists made of where I am supposed to be and when for the rest of the week.

List of jobs sorted to get finished by Friday.

Got a plan. Now just got to carry it out....

I think I have woodworm. Splashed woodworm killer around a bit, noticed that the skirting boards I removed from the fireplace have a few holes in.
The problem is, with the plastering and the opening the fireplace, I am still getting settling dust. So I have put sheets of white paper under the holes in the skirting board I discovered after I just painted it white. Suddenly I see holes, only 3 or 4, but still. Holes! Brown varnish has a lot to answer for.

My DIY brain is screaming take up the carpet and check everywhere. My rational brain says wait until after Ireland, DH won't thank me for ripping up the carpet and living with bare floorboards for 3 weeks until I can sort it properly.

Looked in the hallway, which is next to the living room, and there is no sign there. Can't tell in the back room, which( unsurprisingly) runs back to back with the front room, as it is full of tat.

I need to be rid of stuff.

Just logged on to the mortgage free wannabee overpayment spreadsheet, and I am only slightly behind on my target, of £10,000 off the mortgage before December. Quite happy with that as I did not really start properly until after the remortgage in April.

I am very excited about being able to print off a 100 square in December, and know every square I colour in is 1% of the mortgage.

It does feel a bit like all I am doing is diy and money saving for the overpayments though. Wish I was as motivated to diet! Maybe I need another 100 square for that.

Right, if I can't paint the skirting boards I am monitoring for critters, I can at least paint the window sills.

I'd pull up the carpet now if I were your foxholes. Tell DH that it'll get the dust and dirt out of the house and make it cooler... (I hate carpet - I have painted floorboards where there are floorboards and either tiles or bamboo where there aren't... you can put rugs on floorboards if you need to soften/warm them, but carpets just collect dirt.

There is a 5 foot drop under our floorboards with a force 10 gale going through the air bricks underneath. Also some numpty decided to pull up all the floorboards in the bay window and replace them with the wrong size generic b&q tongue and groove flooring. All needs replacing. The temperature would definitely drop, but this room is an absolute ice house from October - March and only has a tiny radiator that barely takes the chill off . Will be fine when there is a fire in, when it is lit anyway, but I still need a sweep and the cast iron job fitting and a hearth.

Also the neighbours would not thank me for the excess noise of my kids on bare wood floorboards. DH would not thank me either.

But it would be a bit rude of me to pull it all up and then go off for 2 weeks, while he is only away for 3 days and would have to live with it all in a state of upheaval.

So I will do it at the beginning of August. While monitoring the paper for signs of activity.

Rang step-gran to let her know I will be with her for 9 and a half days at the end of July.

'Oh dear, I don't get you for very long' she said.

Very nearly told her to fiddle off.

Some people are simply never happy.

Bl00dy bl00dy bl00dy step gran has decided to cancel her 3 x a day carers for the entire time I am in Ireland.

Even when I am down with in-laws for 3 1/2 days.
She reckons she can cope, and if she gets hurt it is my fault for not telling her exactly when I was going to be there, so she just rang the agency and cancelled every single call.

She took great delight in telling me what she had done.

This is all because I am going down to the in-laws. She is a jealous, manipulative old bat.

I am used to her cancelling her carers for when I am there, think she really fancies a 24 hr body slave, but she usually gets them back when she knows I will not be there.

Honestly, I am livid.

Cancel your visit. Tell her you were coming to visit her, not look after her.

Managed to calm down a bit by the time I picked up kids from school.

Was a bit worried I was going to turn into the angry bald man shouting F*** Off at the pigeons. Kept it together.

New day, new challenges.

I'm sitting here wondering if your step gran is related to my mother. NI is a very small place

Honestly, she really takes the biscuit sometimes

I am really hoping she decides she is too lonely and getting on too much to stay in her own home. I do not care if every penny goes to a nursing home. They are welcome to it.

I can't go on much longer doing this. I told DS1 I would not make him go over again after he was 16 if he did not want to. If she goes into a residential facility I can visit a couple of times a year, for 2 days at a time, I can stay in a b&b, I can 'visit' not clean/haul rubbish/ do diy/ do the gardening..... I do not mind.

I actually just want to sit by a pool like normal people do with their kids for a week or two and actually have a holiday. My kids have never had that.

They have sat in old people's houses so that said old people can feel like they have 'had the children', while not actually wanting to do anything with them, and talking about other people's children who apparently are better behaved than mine (until they are arrested or commit suicide, or get pregnant - sadly a common occurance) .

But at the same time I do not want my kids to say - I never knew my grandparents because you didn't take me to see them.

As the new rebranding of me, I think I might just impose the '3 day fish theory ' with us as houseguests. I can afford to take the hit financially, Less may indeed be more, and I will knock the Easter visit on the head completely. They do not appreciate my time, and the kids don't enjoy it either.

Bah, this time next week I will be there, and once it is started then it will soon be over. And I won't be going back again this year.

inneedofdirection Norn Iron is indeed a very small place and everyone either knows each other or is related to someone by marriage!
However step-gran (and her brother and sister) has no children, even though she is apparently a parenting expert.


In other unrelated news .... I have lost height. I have been 5'5" since I was 14. I am now 5'4. I am gutted