A Week in Which.........

• I attend our first "Come Dine with Me" with friends absolutely fantastic evening, great food, hysterical entertainment and a very high standard set for me to aspire to - I'm the next host (more details in a later post)
  
• Daughter loses her PE bag or, more accurately, someone "borrows" it without asking and I spend three days scouring cloakrooms, changing rooms and bag racks until it suddenly turns up where she orginally left it
  
• I abandon a Chorale rehearsal due to my inability to find a parking space near the RNCM in the dark, cold and rain that doesn't involve walking through dodgy places on my own in the dark
• I suffer a very stressful Parents' Evening why, oh why, have the government decided to heavily fine oversubscribed unis which has lead to universities refusing to give pupils offers lower than AAB and hence parents, understandably, getting very anxious when their child is not achieving a grade A standard and blaming teachers for not teaching their child to get a grade A? (If I could teach every child to get a grade A, I would write the book and earn a fortune!)
  
• Daughter loses her school library book (risking a bill from school which will cost her her pocket money from now until Easter)
• I have my lessons cancelled by my Head of Department because I was seeing double (stress related problem where my brain can't process two different images from my eyes - an hour sitting in a dark room fixed it)
• Daughter loses her snack time fruit tub (notice a theme emerging here?)
• I ask husband to drive me to RNCM at 6.30pm, nip home to receive Tesco delivery between 7 and 8 and then return to RNCM with daughter at 9.00pm to pick me up, Tesco don't turn up, half the band get stuck on the M62, concert is delayed for over an hour and I finally get home at 10.00pm, thanks to a lift from a fellow Chorale member!!
  

Phew!

Clash of Cultures

Driving home from school again, I thought I'd keep trying to foster a love of classical music in my daughter (I live in hope) so I put Classic fm on the radio.

Suddenly she shouted:

"I know that tune! It's Hungarian Dance no. 5!"

"I think it is, Izzy. How do you know that?" I replied,

feeling very proud that she had recognised a piece of music.

"It's the tune for the synchronised swimming at the Olympics on the Wii"

Pardon?

Driving home from school today I was testing daughter on her times tables:

"What's five times six?"

"Pardon?"

"WHAT'S FIVE TIMES SIX?"

"Thirty"

"What's four eights?"

"Pardon?"

"WHAT'S FOUR EIGHTS?!"

"Thirty two"

And so it went on. After every question I asked, she said "Pardon" and I repeated it.

Eventually I got fed up of it:

"What's going on? Why do you keep saying "pardon"? Are you playing for time?"

"Pardon?"

"WHY CAN'T YOU HEAR ME?"

"I've got my earmuffs on!"

Fair enough!

Baking vs Sport - guess which one wins?

Just donning an apron and baking a cake makes everything seem right with the world, doesn't it?

Daughter and I are currently enjoying watching the Sport Relief Bake Off (we recorded it) and howling with laughter at the celebrities' mistakes; how hard is it to make a banana loaf?

Daughter has now decided that she wants to do her own bake sale to raise money for Sport Relief (let's face it, neither of us are particularly sporty, so a bake sale plays more to our strengths) and has been deciding on what she wants to bake: lemon drizzle cake, chocolate rocky road cupcakes, red velvet cake, etc, etc.

We just need to decide on a date and get baking!

If you would like to do the same check out the Great Sport Relief Bake Off website for info and ideas.

Sport Relief is an initiative of Comic Relief, registered charity 326568 (England/Wales); SC039730 (Scotland)

2012 the story so far ...

It's been a niggling start to 2012. I've been busy sorting out lots of silly, annoying things. It's also cost us a lot of money when we're trying to save up to go somewhere warm this summmer - £500 to replace a filter in the car's exhuast; really VW? Shame on you!

Money just seems to be running through our fingers at the moment with things going wrong in the house and cars, even my car tax has gone up 4% (what happened to the government understanding families' struggling to pay bills with no-one getting pay rises for the last two years?) I think we'll have to have a staycation in Summer (unfortunately hubby seems to have his heart set on a fabulous hotel in Mexico - £4000? I think not!)

And then, knowing that I was going on tour to the Isle of Man with The Manchester Chorale next October, we agreed to go to a cottage in Northumberland with my mum and dad this October only to find out, after it had been booked, that the choir's concert schedule contained a typo and the tour is actually this year when I'm in Northumberland! Doh!

Daughter doesn't want to go to the Brownie trip to the Pantomime this afternoon; she says she's got no friends at Brownies and no one talks to her, so I'm trying to pursuade her to go and be more sociable (she has no trouble talking to other children in any other area of her life) and this, following on from not going to the Brownie Christmas Party for the same reason, is now becoming a problem that needs to be sorted.

I've missed two friends' birthdays already this year and I have a self imposed ban on baking until I lose the 5lb I put on over Christmas!

So what happened to my New Year's Resolutions about being positive and doing a random act of kindness?

Let's see - no-one in my family is ill, we're not in any debt (apart from the mortgage, obviously) and next weekend I'm going to a "Come Dine with Me" meal at a friend's house which I'm really looking forward to. (I'm taking my Show Me boards and marker pens from school for the judging - he he he!) My dad is retiring next month and looking forward to spending more time with his gorgeous daughter, sorry, granddaughter. My mum won an i-touch in a raffle at Christmas (first prize out of thousands of tickets, how lucky is she?) and I've been teaching her how to use it which has been fun.

Random act of kindness - I've typed MIL's church reading for her in a larger font so that she can continue to be a reader at church even though she can't read the tiny font in the lectionary anymore. Five minutes' work, years of continuing pleasure for MIL.

Things are good, they are.

I just need to keep reminding myself.

Spread a Little Happiness

I've pretty much given up making New Year's Resolutions. It's such a bad time of year to make changes and I've ususally failed by 10 Jan (ok, 2 Jan), but last year I made a sort of resolution to be more positive. I decided to resist the urge to moan or complain and, instead, to see the good in things, to make a concerted effort to be happier with my lot.

I do think you can get into a mindset of being unhappy and negative (I refer you to my MIL), therefore I think you can do the opposite and develop a more positive outlook on life instead.

To a certain extent it worked; I felt like I had a more pleasant time at home and at work and, if you ignore the little wobble in June when hubby crashed the car, I had a pretty good year.

Well, this year, I've decided that my sort of resolution will be to spread the happiness and try to do some random acts of kindness when I have the opportunity.

So here's to spreading a little happiness in 2012:

So that was Christmas .........

It passed by in a haze of trifle, turkey, strudel, champagne and chocolate!

Today is the first day I've managed to sit down and have a rest. I cleverly invited one of daughter's friends round today to play so they are busy amusing themselves by playing on the Wii with husband (husband occupied too - bonus!)

Looking back on the last week or so, it's been a pretty good Christmas. (Just ignoring the fact that some miserable scrooge cut the wire on our Christmas lights outside - hope Father Christmas didn't visit their house!)

I thoroughly enjoyed my Christmas Concerts, not having a cough or cold made a huge difference.

Christmas Day went well, with MIL only referring to the war, dead or dying people about every 15 mins at which point husband would say very loudly

"Talking about the war again, mother?"

or

"Would that be a dying or dead person then, mother?"

until it became such a joke, she nearly got the point and stopped.

I cooked a ready stuffed turkey breast for the first time and I'm never going back to a carcass again!

Daughter made and decorated the Christmas Cake:

(Victoria Sponge because she said she didn't want fruit cake)

and last night some friends came round with far too much champagne and tried to pursuade me to cook a meal for their daughter's in-laws on Friday for them, but I resisted. I've got my own guests to cook for tomorrow.

Now settling down with a good cup of tea and a big box of Hotel Chocolat chocolates.

Bliss!

Nearly there........

Two more sleeps!!

We're nearly ready.

Hubby has just popped off to the butchers to collect the turkey.

Today will be spent doing lots of Christmas baking.

I've one more concert on Christmas Eve at the Bridgewater Hall.

Then it's time to party!

Merry Christmas!

All I Want for Christmas

Finally made it to the end of term!

Last week consisted of work every day and rehearsals and concerts every night so I'm exhuasted.

Mind you, on Thursday I did a full day's work, drove daughter home, hopped on the tram to Manchester, sang in a concert in St Ann's, went to the Chorale Christmas meal on Deansgate, hopped back on a tram and was in bed by 10.30PM. Not bad!!

Now all is calm in the Working Mum house as we do the final preparations for the big day. Just two more concerts to do on Monday and Christmas Eve.

Yesterday consisted of tidying and DIYing to Michael Buble's Christmas album followed by the week's "It Takes Two" (I hadn't had chance to watch any) and then the Strictly final.

Looking back on the day of Michael Buble and Harry Judd I said to daughter "You know, there's something about a man who can sing, and a man who can dance............."

(Yes, I admit, I looked wistfully into space as I remembered when I was in sixth form and had boyfriends who could do both)

To which she replied:

"So, basically, daddy is the wrong man for you."

Ah, hadn't thought that through, had I?

More Stuff to Keep Me Busy

And this week I got a cold!

Yes, I've been struggling on with a runny nose, sore throat and aching bones.

And I made it to the weekend!

Which is quite surprising given that I am dealing with this at home:

You try having conversation on the phone from work with the builder about how you want your patio, paths and driveway to look when you leave the house in the dark, return in the dark and can't see a thing he's done until the weekend!

I've also managed to get all my reports written and make two dozen cakes for the school Christmas Fair:

(Overcompensating working mum syndrome kicking in?)

Then yesterday we attended said Christmas Fair and bought our cakes back (no, only joking). Daughter and I tried our hand at ice skating at the fair, but it wasn't ice, it was plastic and ice blades are not meant to glide effortlessly sideways, that's how you are supposed to brake! Consequently, not a lot of skating took place, mostly clinging and falling.

Today I charged hubby with taking daughter to swimming and riding and sending her off on the Brownie Winterwonderland trip and stupidly decided to brave the Trafford Centre to do some shopping I couldn't do via t'internet.

"I'll go early" I thought, "I'll be in and out before the crowds"

How wrong I was.

Seems the crowds also decided to go an hour before the shops opened.

Then, at the first till my credit card was denied.

And the second.

"Odd" I thought.

Then I remembered that I had topped up my phone that morning and my credit card provider always stops my card when I top up as a security measure and I have to phone them and confirm my last week's transactions before they release it.

Damn!

I'll be glad to get back to work tomorrow.