Monday 31 July 2017

june and july 2017

I was too busy being busy to do my blog roundup at the end of June. I'm too busy being busy now as well. But I don't want to look like a total slack arse missing TWO months. So here they are all at once. Like a bobby bonus and everything.


Wednesday 26 July 2017

holiday countdown continues...

My body may be in rainy West Yorkshire trying to plough through a ton of work and get my shit together in time to jet off....but my head is already in the Costa del Sunshine... SEVEN MORE SLEEPS 😎

Sunday 23 July 2017

holiday countdown

School's now officially out for summer. Woohoo. And I'm on a holiday countdown... 10 more sleeps....yaaaaaayyyyyyyy....

Thursday 20 July 2017

donkey boy

I thought the school plays would end when the youngest started high school. I didn't bank on him having a penchant for drama. Last night we went to watch his starring appearance in the latest production. He was a donkey. Awesome.

Saturday 15 July 2017

occasional garden visitor

Part of the fence in our back garden is broken. This means that about twice a week the pug from the house behind makes a break for freedom and does a lap of honour around our garden. He has a wee about 20 times, does some weird heavy breathing and winds Minnie up into a total frenzy by staring in through the patio doors. The first couple of times we took him home. Now we can't be arsed any more. We just leave him to wee a lot and make his own way home.


Thursday 13 July 2017

horses in heaven

For Ayesha. My beautiful friend. Taken far too early ❤️

Sunday 9 July 2017

art

We went to Manchester Art Gallery today. 
I'd like to say I visit art galleries all the time. Being an arty sort and all that.
But the truth is I hardly ever step foot in anywhere remotely arty. We sometimes do the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. But as soon as the kids noticed it wasn't "a real park....where are the swings?" it became a bit of a chore to drag them there. The other half is as much into art as he is into doing the ironing. So our artistic weekend adventures tend to be contained in a visit to Salts Mill where I look at the art supplies and the David Hockneys, the eldest looks at the books, the other half goes to the bike shop and the youngest moans his head off for an hour.
But there's a Joy Division thing on at Manchester Art Gallery at the mo and the other half is into that stuff so today we went to see some art.
We mosied round the other bits after checking out the Joy Division. Portrait galleries and everything. Awesome.

Thursday 6 July 2017

garden update

I've sacked the gardener. 
As the other half pointed out the other week...the garden has never looked as bad as it does now. She's really lovely but she appears to have come from the PotterAndPrune school of gardening and we need someone who's more of a ChopItDownAndClearOutTheShit sort of gardener. The tree outside my office window has become so overgrown that I can't actually see out of one window anymore. And some other trees have formed a massive canopy over the decking so that even if the sun was shining we wouldn't be able to tell. She said she'd do it when it wasn't winter/wet/slippy any more. But then ditched the idea in favour of titivating the new bushes she planted. The front garden looks like no-one has lived here for 6 years. The grass was permanently in need of mowing. And it cost me £130 to hire a skip to put all the crap in that she'd cleared out of the other half's "wild area". Plus she was a bit random in the timing of her visits.
So I told her we don't need her any more. And I bought us a shiny new state-of-the-art Gtech cordless mower. It's awesome. The youngest had it out of the box and whizzed round the garden in the time it would have taken her to have a coffee and a chat.
Sorted.

Wednesday 5 July 2017

yorkshire grey

It would appear that the rest of the country is basking in glorious sunshine. Apart from West Yorkshire, that is, where it is dull and grey and a little bit drizzly. For a bloody change.
I think it's time we moved. I'm not cut out for this climate. It was so lovely to be actually warm last week and wear clothes that are usually only wearable the 2 weeks of the year I'm on holiday. I'm sick of the grey. I'm sick of the cold. And I'm sick of the drizzle. ☹️

Monday 3 July 2017

prom diddly promprom

It's been non stop action in my little life this week. After a full-on week of adventure in Hong Kong and China, followed by an 8 hour delay in Zurich, I arrived home just in the nick of time to sort out my little prom princess. Well....almost in time...my sister had to step in the day before for the tan and nail appointments while I sipped on a nice-cold-ice-cold beer on the rather lovely streets of Zurich. But I arrived in time to ferry her about to hair and makeup appointments and to get her home in time to wiggle into the frock and pose for 20 million photos before whisking her off to PreProm. (For anyone not yet at this stage in parenthood and not up to speed with this imported phenomenon I'd like to inform you that it's not just a Prom you have to think about. There's also a PreProm and then an AfterProm. A second outfit is required for AfterProm cos who wants to wear a 300 quid dress all night when you can get changed into a little Topshop number.) I was allowed to attend PreProm (lots of parents were banned by their offspring) (I'm assuming I was allowed because I was a super cool PromMom. Obvs) Everyone took 20 million more photos then they all left on a vintage bus that wasn't dissimilar to the 666 school bus we had in 1983 (yes, our school bus bore the number of the beast) 
I didn't see her again until she phoned from AfterAfterProm at 6.40am to advise me that she was ready to be collected. She then slept all day before getting ready for the PostPromParty. 
It's all left me a little exhausted I must say. And skint.