Disgruntled

Yesterday was Mothering Sunday in Britain.  

It was also the day the clocks went forward.

The one day a year a mother gets an extra hour in bed and it’s stolen from her by British Summer Time?

The calendar is clearly compiled by a man.

A Mother’s Joy, Sort Of

I didn’t mean for it to be, but this has turned out to be a complicated post.  Skip to the end if you can’t face reading the whole thing, where I will leave a summary.

Peterborough This Week (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tory Boy is home!

He was here for four days over Christmas – the first time in six years that he didn’t have to work on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, and he’s only 22.  He had to go back to Peterborough to work double shifts over New Year, having swapped with colleagues of a similar age who like to party and who all live close enough to work to be able to go home for Christmas without missing a shift.

We did phone Tory Boy at midnight on New Year’s Eve but he was fast asleep, and had been since nine.  Bless.  They work them hard in TV but they are generous with their leave – TB and two other employees, who will all have been there only eight months at financial year’s end, were each given a full complement of leave instead of pro rata.  All leave must be used up by year-end. Year-end is 31 March.

Tory Boy is home now for ten days  – only four of which are actual leave.  He works twelve-hour shifts in blocks of three and four days, so he booked four days off between two three-day blocks of not working.  He often works overtime on his days off because what else is there to do in Peterborough?

French Fancies (Photo credit: lilivanili)

Spud’s seventeenth birthday is coming up next week.  Tory Boy wanted to surprise him so he didn’t tell Spud he was coming home. Because he knew he’d be back soon, Tory Boy didn’t  take some of his Christmas goodies back with him.  I walked in on Spud polishing off the French Fancies from TB’s stocking.  When I scolded him for stealing his brother’s treats, he argued that TB wouldn’t be home for months and they’d have gone stale and had to be thrown away, and there were starving children in Africa so he had to eat them; it was his moral obligation.  I had to concede the point.  

I’ll instruct Tory Boy to deduct the value of the French Fancies from Spud’s birthday present, though I doubt that he will: he already bought it in the Boxing Day sales because Spud looked at Tory Boy with his little-brother-adores-big-brother-and-won’t-you-please-buy-this-game-for-me-because-you-are-such-a-brilliant-big-brother? eyes.  Spud scores again.

Tory Boy arrived home Monday and asked me to wake him by seven a.m. Tuesday.  I woke him; he got up and then slept on the couch for five hours, cuddling the dog.  He went to see a friend in the afternoon, came home around three, went straight to bed and slept right through last night.  He didn’t hear us enter his room to check on him, or feel my frantic hands checking his temperature (high).  We woke him to insist he take paracetamol but he went right back to sleep.  He did get through two bottles of water and he’s been up to the loo, so I’m not panicking just yet (give it time).  

Bless!

They work them hard in TV production and I think he’s just exhausted.  It’s genetic: my younger brother and I have a similar habit of overdoing things and then taking to our beds to recover.

Thankfully, with the way his shifts work, Tory Boy gets most of February off. His girlfriend gets the benefit of that leave; he won’t have seen her since the beginning of January.  I hope she doesn’t tire him out.  Girlfriends don’t look after clingy mothers’ sons the way clingy mothers do.

Summary:

• Beloved eldest son back in the bosom of his clingy mother
• BESBITBOHCM works too hard  
• Beloved youngest son a do-gooding treat thief
• BESBITBOHCM sick
• Clingy Mother attacks offices of TV company with a big stick

Let’s Hear It For The Fridge Magnet!

My last modelling job

As you all know, given how much I have complained about it, I have had the busiest summer on record.  

This week, I was supposed to be hamming it up at my church’s annual holiday club for under-tens.  I had to request a sabbatical.  I am what is technically known in the business as knackered.

Today is a public holiday in the UK, the last one before Christmas.  Traditionally, Brits like to spend it barbecuing.  What Brits actually do is veg in front of the TV.

I am not a woman to let down my country.

See you tomorrow.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Ready (2)

I’m ready to predict I’m having a fabulous time in Spain but that I’m ready to come home tonight. 

I predict I’m missing blogging: like the wind blowing through an empty Malteser bag, there’s a gaping hole where this blog should be. 

Oh, and my family.  I’m probably missing them as well.

No photo again; I’m not that ready.

Have Bucket, Will Travel

Image by Paul Kidd via Flickr

Do you think peace in the middle east is possible?

Possible; yes. Probable? No. I’ll be holidaying elsewhere for a while.

What shoul​d you do w​hen sick 
o​n vacation​?

Find a bucket, quick.  Some things cross the cultural divide.

What does “home” mean to you?

Too much cleaning; too little pay.  But at least I know where I keep the buckets.

*

My Dream Vacation

Image via Wikipedia

An all-inclusive hotel.  I don’t care where.  It can be in the middle of Stockport in the middle of winter in the middle of the worst blizzard ever known: if it means no cooking, no cleaning, I’m in.

 

Six-Word Memoirs

This was a fun exercise, found here (via Vivinfrance; thanks Viv). Take the same headings as mine and write a six-word memoir for each one. You can be as honest or as vague as you like.

Best Advice Given Or Gotten:

Don’t put it down, but away.

Milestone Birthdays:

Eighteen: my parents set me free.
Forty: my age set me free.

Holiday Traditions:

Tree up together; tree down: mother.
Everybody’s home; everybody eats; everybody laughs.

A Memorable Meal:

The Spur: Christmas Dinner. Steak sucks.

Siblings:

Two brothers; one older; one younger.

Cheating Death:

Eldest Child: Pool. Slip. Alert friend.
Youngest Child: biltong: slap: sore back.

The Trip That Changed My Life:

First flight to South Africa. Sigh.

What A Child Taught Me:

We’re polite to strangers, not family.

Revenge Is Sweet:

But it belongs to the Lord.

The Worst Mistake I’ve Ever Made:

Paid ten cents: saw modern art.

Met Very Young:

My husband; our marriage matured us.

Growing Old Together:

We’re grey, cuddly and in love.

My Life Overall:

Has been happier than many another.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holiday’s A-Comin’

The Sun newspaper may be regularly derided and vilified but ten million readers will agree that they have great offers. Page 3 Girl Lucinda Lexicona from Luton declares ‘I asseverate that Sun readers are indebted to the editor’s munificence and much esteem their £9.50 caravan holidays.’

Not having had a holiday together in twelve years (and that was a disaster never to be spoken of again while the Hub and I are breathing…ssh! He’s coming), we thought it might be a good idea to splash out a tenner each for the four of us.

I bought the paper and saved the vouchers and we were all set to go when it suddenly occurred to us that we probably couldn’t take our dogs to stay in Pontins’ holiday flats. We were right. Mightily disappointed but not prepared to send our pets to kennels that cost more per night than we were paying for the week, we put away our sun block (for holding the door open to let in a little rain) and thunk again.

Thinking not being our thing, we were relieved when The Sun rode to our rescue with a fresh plan: cut out these here noo vouchers and you can go camping (at a camp site that allows dogs) for £1 a night. We simply had to phone our chosen camp site, book it, and pay up front.

We upgraded to a stand with electricity and mentioned the dogs and a week’s camping holiday in Abergele with our dogs and however many of our kids can tolerate our snoring in October when it’s turning cold(er) and wet(ter) after this delightful summer of leaky skies, will cost us a grand total of £25.

Now all we have to do is buy a tent.

Boys Moan

Spud Bud has left me for another woman: his friend’s mother, who makes edible mashed potatoes that he can stomach, though he can’t stomach mine; and who has gone off to exotic places for a week: Trearddur Bay in Angelsey.  This is the third time they have taken him away and I am very grateful, though they will insist on bringing him back.

I had hoped to have a break from his complaints – he’s fourteen: complain and sleep is all they do – but he had been gone only six hours before the first call came, complaining that I had not provided him with bedding (okay; I never said his complaints were unjustified).  I remembered the toothpaste; what more does he want?