annanotbob's Diaryland Diary
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tired and emotional
Absolutely, totally knackered, me. Usual story - too much going on for my delicate wee soul. Doesn't matter if it's good stuff or bad, I am seriously lacking in stamina and seemingly unable to factor that into my arrangements.
Today started with Sara giving Sammie a pampering session, which involved an armchair in the bathroom and lots of giggling, leaving me on Granny duty. Not good. I'm a late-nighter. I've often had to get up early - that last job I had required me to be in a classroom 25 miles down the road at 8.10 - but expecting me to be fun first thing is just pointless.
Especially after a night on the fucking sofa. I seem to remember last night claiming to be grateful for a comfy sofa to sleep on - that was some weird fantasy based on God only knows what. There's a difference between nodding off for a snooze in the middle of the afternoon and getting a full, refreshing night's sleep.
Anyway, Tony (8) thrashed me (English teacher) at scrabble again, the little shit. My method of playing with him is to always put down the very first word that occurs to me and let the game take its course. Mostly I'm not putting down very high-scoring words, but sometimes I do, if they leap out at me, and I help him if he can't think of anything at all (which happened twice this morning).
Here's Sammie, post-pampering:
Sara then took Tony to the park:
Yes it was only a couple of days ago that I was celebrating the arrival of the first warmth of spring, but now we have the only snow that's lasted longer than an hour or two for years and years.
I went off snow permanently in 1986, when Renny was about 14 months, Sara almost three and Sammie was on holiday with her dad for the week. The phone had been cut off after Tito ran up a bill of hundreds of pounds phoning Venezuela and fucked off without paying it. We had snow then such as had not been experienced on the coast of Sussex within living memory, on and on it fell, piling up into beautiful drifts before the temperature plummeted and it all froze over. We lived a kind of day to day existence in those days, but wherever I went I was always dragging around my two small children in a ricketty old double buggy. They could both walk, but Sara was bolshy and independent while Renny was dreamy and slow; they were both massive for their age, far too big to carry any distance.
Just getting down the alleyway from our flat to the road was a fucking nightmare - I kept giving up and taking us all back in, then getting stir crazy with no one to talk to and having another go. After a couple of days I ran out of fags and there was no choice. I didn't possess any snow shifting tools, like a shovel or anything useful and with no phone I couldn't contact anyone. Where it had kept melting a bit, then freezing, then a bit more falling and freezing again, it was just hideously bumpy and beyond hard work. Only the demon nicotine kept me motivated. Terrible.
Though I will say, on nicotine's behalf, that it taught me the true nature of addiction at an early age so I've never been tempted to push my luck with heroin or alcohol, or anything else. I know what you will put yourself through for your beloved substance, whatever it is, and one is enough.
Anyway, fuck snow. Yeah yeah, it's pretty, we don't get it often, but no, actually, it doesn't bring out the child in me, it brings out the grumpy old git.
So Sara took Tony to the park where he collected a stray dog for a while:
He took this one of her on the tea tray:
Meanwhile, back at Casa Notbob, the girls had invited Ren and Sam to come and watch the Formula 1 motor-racing which drives me insane and things kind of went downhill from there for me. Outnumbered and outvoted, in my own home. Bah. I ended up cooking a big lunch, while wanting to just sit down and cry.
When they'd gone - Sam taking Sammie back home and dropping Ren off en route - I scarpered down to Jane's, double quick, and lay down on her sofa for an hour or two. God, we are going to Italy on Thurday, which is not very far away. I meant to try and get some hypnotherapy to cure my fear of flying, but I guess it'll be the valium as usual.
Now I'm off to my lovely comfortable bed.
I am grateful for:
1. Quiet time
2. Jane
3. A blog to rant in
4. The kahlua I shall put in the cocoa I'm about to make
5. Feeling close to Sammie again and her enjoying being part of this family.
Sweet dreams xxx
|11:00 p.m. - 06/04/2008
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