Get me home!

This week has been a long one - partly as we are almost there before 2 weeks off (and 10 days in France - yippee!), but also because I had 2 nights out with work on the bounce and both nights resulted in horrible journeys home. Wednesday was a black tie dinner at the Guildhall - lovely venue but very dull speeches - not surprising I suspect if you let the outgoing Head of the Financial Conduct Authority in front of a microphone! Despite being made to feel like a naughty school child by him (which in turn made everyone act like one and get very giggly), it was lovely to catch up with so many people I hadn't seen in ages. The night took a turn for the worse however when I realised that the car booked to take me home wasn't there - booking malfunction! This meant tubes, trains and automobiles because the last train to Newbury had gone and I finally got home at 2am - thank goodness I'd hardly drunk anything. Thursday night was definitely more splendid - Adele at Wembley courtesy of some last minute box tickets. The journey there was ok if a bit busy, she was fabulous and my guests thoroughly enjoyed them selves. The journey home though was rubbish again. Wembley was grid locked (who on earth decided it was a good place to put an internationally sized venue??), I finally walked to meet the person picking me up and we went the long way round to get out, only to find the M4 and A34 unexpectedly closed! I did a little better - it was 1:45am when I crawled through the door but by then I was well and truly knackered!

So, this weekend has definitely been one of re-charging - both for me and the kids who are ready for the simmer holidays. despite this terms being quite short it seems to have taken its toll and they are tired. They were due to be at the summer school concert but I pulled the plus - they didn't have a starring role (obviously given their lack of musical interest) and we had no desire to spend 2 hours listening to other people's children play badly - bad parents! I felt guilty until I found out that everyone sensible had made their excuses ages ago and all the non-musical ones (i.e. mostly our friends) weren't going either. Guilt free then!

 Abi was at the stables all day Saturday and then disappeared off tot a friends for an evening of camping so Izzy was home alone with us. She is funny - she spent ages up in her bedroom, sitting under her desk with her iPad playing funny little You Tube videos as background noise, colouring blu-tack and making collages on the underside of her desk. This isn't a new thing - give that girl some blu-tack and she is happy for hours. Not long ago we came up to find she'd modelled pretty much a whole miniature office out of the stuff - desk, chair, vase of flowers, waste paper bin... she loves it! I dragged her downstairs to do something 'productive' (why is it that if its outside its productive, even if its sitting around doing nothing, if its inside its not?!?), which involved persuading her to get dressed - she's taken to sleeping naked - and have some food. she'd still live on air until lunchtime given the chance.

Today her creative juices were flowing again and she wanted to make some potions to 'feed' her dolls with. She mixed all kinds of bits and pieces together, bringing them out for me to try until I called time - they were getting increasingly icky! The dogs were following her around in the hope of getting a look in - anything that contains peanut butter has to be a good thing in their eyes - goodness knows what one of those would do to Bertie's stomach though! By 3pm this afternoon she'd had enough of being on her own, not least as I had spent the whole weekend hacking rhododendrons down, and was begging me to phone round her friends to find someone to play with. She disappeared off to Aran's for the final few hours of the afternoon but I take my hat off to her - she is very good at amusing herself at home and unlike Abi who would prefer to go off visiting people if there are no plans at home Izzy is actually very happy just chilling out at home with her iPad and her blu-tack for company.

So one more week of work / school and then the girls have 9 weeks off - 9 weeks! I'm in denial at the moment and beyond France have sorted very little out - I should get myself sorted otherwise everyone will be cross with me - there is only so much one can do with your imagination and some blu-tack surely?!