I love it when a plan comes together.

Unfortunately it doesn't happen all that often. Take today's plan for example.
Get up, get the girls up, get out of the house and into the bus and over to IKEA to celebrate the last day of the school holidays.

Our carer arrived at 7.30, halfway between our holiday time of 8 and our termtime 7am visit. Easing us back into our routine gently. Just as well, since tomorrow morning I need to be out of the house with Little Fish before 8.

So, both girls up and dressed and ready for the day by 8.30. We pootle around the house for a while, waiting until the traffic has died down a little.

9AM and I remember a few admin phonecalls I need to make. I know which hospital LF and I are supposed to be at tomorrow morning, but we could be seeing any one of half a dozen specialists at that hospital, so let's find out (and double check the appointment hasn't been cancelled). Quick phonecall to the hospice to try and book Mog in in March. My parents want Little Fish for a couple of nights, so if this comes together then I might actually have a 48 hour pass.

Bob comes back and I approve his plans for the day, LF creates a mini vortex of chaos in the kitchen and I clean the worst of it up, load us into the van and am amazed to discover it is already 10.30. Not entirely sure how that happened. No matter; we just need petrol and then we'll be on our way.

I pull in at the petrol station, wince at the price, but am pleasurably suprised by the lack of queue. Being later than planned has paid off. As I enter the shop I realise I haven't had any breakfast and so grab a ham and cheese sandwich and queue at the food and fuel stop. The manager and the assistant appear to be in the middle of a row. Apparently the woman who left the shop as I walked in has walked out without paying. Except that she has paid. Only, she's paid my fuel bill, not her own. This naturally takes a while to sort out, and involves four assistants chasing the woman to catch her before she drives off. Eventually it is fixed, and I hand my sandwich over to be heated up. The man before me at the till has also been waiting for a hot sandwich, his and mine are put into the oven together. And slowly slowly heated. Argument between the manager and assistant continues. Ping and the oven is ready, splat and my sandwich is spread over the floor. Another one is grabbed, the man who has waiting approximately 15 minutes for his wishes me luck, and I wait for the new sandwich to be heated.

20 minutes after I walk into the shop I am finally able to leave, and we are on our way.

An uneventful shop (sorry if that's a disappointment!); we get everything on our list (large plastic tubs for the garage, some underbed storage and a new lampshade for Mog), and a few things not on the list (chocolate, magnetic tubs and a hammer).

Home James, also uneventful. I unload the van, plug Little Fish into her somewhat late tube feed, and build the boxes and drawers for Mog's bed (all cardboard, no hard labour involved). Fired with enthusiasm, I turn out Mog's wardrobe. All baby stuff is thrown into one of the large bins, anything outgrown which will fit Little Fish is now not exactly folded neatly in her drawers but at least tossed into the corner of her bedroom, anything not belonging to Mog has been dumped in my bedroom along with everything else which doesn't have a home stacked in a corner awaiting decisions as to its future, all toys are stuffed under the settee in the playroom.

The new storage is filled neatly with 5 ml and 10 ml syringes, extension kits and bungs for her gastrostomy, gauze wipes, foam mouth swabs, syringe tips, all stacked beautifully in their own little boxes, so organised and so tidy, so clean, so unlike the rest of the house. In the tidying process detritus has naturally found its way through to the sitting room, the kitchen, my room, the bathroom; in fact the whole house is now coated in a layer of empty packaging, old cardboard boxes, out of date syringes, and the new lampshade, which inevitably turns out to be not simply a shade but a whole new light fitting, so will need some expert assembly by someone other than myself.

Never mind; it is now 6pm and the girls have been fed and watered. School tomorrow for Mog so an early night is in order; I can get them both settled in bed then sit down and relax for the evening. I'll ignore the chaos; it will still be there in the morning for me to deal with. Until my brain starts kicking into gear. It takes a while. First day of term tomorrow, hmmm that means tomorrow must be Tuesday. Now if tomorrow is Tuesday, that means today is Monday. Oh, that means Guides tonight. Ah well, the babysitter won't mind a bit of a muddle; she's used to it and if I time things right she'll even sort some laundry for me. Excellent. Except hmmm this is the first Guide meeting of term. That means no babysitter, that means the senior Guides and all the leaders are coming here for the evening to plan the term. Argh, that means that the girls will be arriving in a little over an hour; I need to get my girls to bed and tidy the house and somehow reduce the chaos to manageable proportions.

Into the black hole that is my bedroom go even more piles of stuff. Under the settee go more stacks of toys. Dirty dishes loaded into the washer in double quick time, girls filed into bed after the shortest showers ever, and as the doorbell rings, the last of the paper makes it to the green bin.

One Guide meeting happens, we plan our programme, and now I can sit and enjoy the blitzed house. Except that it doesn't quite look as good as it did three hours ago...somehow the instant tidyness has been undone over the course of the meeting; chocolate wrappers and felt tip pens are scattered across the floor, kitchen chairs and other bits and pieces are filling the sitting room. Oh, and I can't reach my bed from the door of my bedroom.

Best go and sort something.
Tia

Earthworks

Want proof that Bob is a perfectionist? We needed a ramp from the new french windows in the sunroom out to the garden. At the front door and kitchen door, we have simple concrete ramps which took a few hours to create, a day to set, and then done. This was not good enough for Bob. He's been working on our "ramp" for a few weeks now.
Notice the horizontal piecing of the wall and the mitred edges? Please notice them; they took a long time to make.

The photo below includes the additional piece of decking he insisted on building in the corner to disguise the fact that the new piece of fencing he is building won't match the older fence to either side. I suppose I should be grateful for the fact his perfectionism has not led him to rip down the whole of the fence! And yes, this picture is to scale; the new ramp and associated decking does indeed take up more than half of the garden. That upturned black plastic thing in the middle is the water reservoir for Mog's fountain.

Predictions for when it might actually be completed?
Tia

More Cosy Domesticity (are you bored yet?)

Little Fish and I spent the morning cooking. She stirred, I measured, she poured, I cooked, she tantrummed whenever the meal reached a stage where heat was involved, I stayed firm and prevented the toddler from immolating herself.

Her stirring skills contributed to a rather tasty colcannon-esque leek and potato thing, a nice bowl of stuffing, and some very tasty pears with chocolate sauce. Her tantrumming skills added nothing whatsoever to the roast pork and parsnips.

I spent the better part of an hour hunting for the potatoes, which I knew were somewhere in the kitchen (the kitchen is not that big). Only once I had given in and decided on instant mash instead of roast potatoes (and actually mixed up the mash) did I find the sack of spuds under Mog's nebulizer. Grump.

Both girls were delighted to have my parents here for lunch, and Mog's turn came afterwards. Dad arrived, armed with hammer and drill, ready to hang Mog's new CD player in her princess bedroom. The CD player has digital radio with it, and apparently there's a children's channel, Radio 7. Mog may never leave her bedroom again! She spent the rest of the afternoon and evening sitting staring up at the new CD player, listening to silly stories and songs and grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

Little Fish meanwhile managed to break into the party bag of Maltesers, spread general chaos and devastation around the sitting room, pour foul smelling water over the bathroom (I'm not entirely sure how), and strip all her dolls naked then hide the clothes.

Surrounded by domestic devastation I should probably go and tidy up. Instead, I am off to make myself a roast pork sandwich and thence to bed.

Night folks
Tia

The Perils of Perfectionism

In case you hadn't picked up on it, Bob is a perfectionist. Today he arrived with Nephew as his mate. They spent much of the day kneeling in the mud doing something I couldn't see underneath the new decking he's been laying. Eventually he dragged me out into the rain to show me. The two of them have spent the whole day taking the trim he had used to finish off the sides of the decking down, chopping it up, mitre-ing it, and putting it back. It is now in vertical pieces about six inches long instead of one long horizontal strip. It does look better, he's right, but you know what? I could have lived happily with the one he'd already done. He plans to spend tomorrow finishing that change off. That's two days' work for two men, perfecting something which looked pretty good already. He has also decided what plants I need and his wife has been growing them for us - apparently we're having a variety of different scented shrubs and a Virginia Creeper, then lots of bulbs. I quite liked the flowering currants and winter jasmine we already have; I hope some of that survives the purge. The job just keeps growing; apparently the outside of the whole extension now needs painting, not just the new addition. Again, he is (irritatingly) right, but I do wonder whose house this is at times.

The good news is my ceiling has dried out, so hopefully we've got away without more problems there.

Bob is rebuilding this house for good. It's taking forever to do, but at the end it will be left stronger, more beautiful, more functional, for as long as we want to live here. There are no quick fixes for the perfectionist. I'm sure I could draw a parallel to something more spiritual here...

Mog's grandparents came to visit today. This set live further away than the others, so don't see her as often. They mentioned it was another family member's birthday and that they were calling in to see the rest of Mog's family before driving home. When it was time for them to leave (having given Mog a beautiful jacket and interviewed me on the precise nature of all her medications), Mog shouted and kicked and generally made it clear she had something to say. It's not easy getting to find out what Mog has to say - she smiles and sticks her tongue out for yes, and frowns (fleetingly and with great difficulty, especially if she is excited) for no. By a process of elimination we covered some of the more obvious ones - something about her shoes, her clothes, her new room decoration, Christmas? all no. Eventually we figured it out; she wanted to say Happy Birthday to the birthday girl. Now that's impressive not only because she managed to get her message across to us, but also because she understood what we were talking about half an hour beforehand and remembered when it was time to go. It certainly surprised her Grandparents; I hope they remember the message and appreciate it really did come from Mog and not from me.

Tia

My reading corner

Happy Domesticity after a week away.

Theoretically, I have a playroom full of children's toys (and ball pools and bubble tubes and music makers and general mess creators), and a sitting room full of books and quieter entertainments. Theoretically; I can walk away from the mess at the end of the day and into a quiet corner in a clean and restful room and put my mind in order. Theoretically; I can welcome unexpected guests and host meetings for social services (ah the joys of being a fostercarer) at the drop of a hat.

In practice, of course, it doesn't work like that. It's the best room for the doll's house to live in, it's the best place to keep all my mountain of unfiled paperwork, it's the place where the girls play whilst waiting for the school bus, it's where my computer sits and where bits of jigsaw puzzle and car track wait patiently to be reunited with their peers.

But I do have one little cosy corner in it. It isn't much of a corner perhaps, and too close an inspection of the bookshelves would leave much to be desired. But it does look lovely in the evenings. Nice lamp don't you think? Bittersweet; it is a gift one of Goldy's relatives bought for Goldy to give to me once she was settled in to her new home. It came with a card, thanking me for being the light of Goldy's life for so long. It didn't get to me until Goldy's funeral in the end. It is a perfect lamp to read by though.


Oh the poinsettia? It died whilst we were away. The lamp shines on though.

In other news, I am close to despair. Bob has perhaps 3 days' work left. Do visit that link if you haven't seen it before. It has pictures of my kitchen ceiling, or what remained of it when it fell on top of him, thanks to a long term leak from my upstairs neighbour's washing machine. Today I felt water dripping on me as I walked into the kitchen. Same neighbour, same washing machine, two years later. I cannot cope with this. At least this time whilst my neighbour still refused to open her door, she did read the note I pushed through it and appears to have stopped the leak. For now. Last time I had to turn off the mainst stopcock until the ceiling stopped dripping, as she wouldn't talk to me. I'm having a hard time loving my neighbour at the moment - I'll be honest, I really don't love her very much at all. I would love her to move away, does that count? So much of the endless building project has been complicated by damage from the upstairs family; I am so tired of it all.
Tia

Down on the Farm

Blagdon Farm, that is.

Having uploaded my photos I realise they're all full of children, so, sorry folks, most of them won't make it here. I also need to apologise to Trina for driving past Launceston Castle several times without once managing to catch a picture. Not terribly wheelchair accessible though.

We stayed here
Our front view looked like this
And our rear view like this (aren't these riveting photos and well worth my week's absence to obtain?)

Let me tell you about one day in our otherwise peacefully uneventful trip. New Year's Eve. A day in which, I believe, I visited Hell on earth.

The day started far too early with a pair of obnoxious children. Yes, newsflash, my children are not perfect. Mog was just being grotty - a little uncomfortable I think and definitely not in the mood for sitting around waiting for things to happen. And Little Fish was in full-on destructo-queen mode. Doing the rounds in her chair - opening and emptying all the drawers in the kitchen, moving on to scattering all the toys in the sitting room, trying to spread toiletries around the bathroom, unmaking the beds, etcetera. Too many late nights for both of them. So when it came to a choice of stringing them up on the balcony by their fingernails getting very cross with them or finding some way of entertaining them and burning some energy, I decided that going for a drive was probably a wise plan.

We headed for Launceston, to pick up petrol and then hopefully to have a potter around. Not the most accessible of towns, but then Cornwall isn't really the most wheelchair accessible of counties. Too many hilly bits. Our plan for stopping in Launceston other than at the petrol stration was neatly obstructed by the inability to find anywhere to park the van. Too high for height-controlled carparks, too much need for rear access to park on crowded streets, and too big for cowardly me to force it through tiny narrow alleyways full of shoppers. Still, Launceston looked pretty from a slow moving vehicle.

On to Bude. Pootling around the countryside I decided we would stop when we saw something promising. We saw several promising things, but generally whilst driving past them at reasonable speed, with no stopping space or turning point. Little Fish began to demand dinner. Eventually we made it the 16 miles to Bude (only took the best part of an hour), and called in quickly at a small supermarket to stock up with supplies for the evening meal (we were holidaying with friends, and New Year's Eve happens to be the birthday of one of them - happy 13th birthday, Teenager!) and to find Little Fish some lunch.

No cafe. No problem, we'll do a quick shop and feed her in the bus. First problem - the shopping trolleys are the evil kind which require feeding with a £1 coin in order to be liberated from the long line of tethered trolleys. No way of testing them to ensure you pick a tame one with four wheels all running in the same direction, you pays your money and you takes your chance. This is theoretically a relatively simple operation (insert coin into slot, reverse trolley out of queue, enter shop). However attempting this procedure with my girls brings a whole new layer of complexities to the procedings. Since Little Fish is small enough to fit into the trolley child seat we don't bother with her wheelchair. This means that once in the shop I only have to juggle Mog in her chair and LF in the trolley. However, until the trolley has been liberated from the line, it means I have LF tucked under my arm, and one foot hooked around Mog's chair trying to stop her from rolling back into the carpark whilst I tuck my handbag under my neck and use a combination of teeth and fingernails to extract a coin from the purse, which is itself somewhere buried in the depths of my bag, under nappies, wipes, teaspoons, book tokens, and the other general handbag detritus. Classy. LF does not help matters by objecting to being upside down and wriggling like a live eel. Eventually I locate and extract the requisite £1 coin, and wonder of wonders, manage to avoid immediately dropping it down a drain. I insert it into the trolley waving graciously at the large crowd of rubberneckers onlookers and, having freed our trolley from bondage, insert LF into the seat (which in itself is a whole 'nother story - floppy lifeless legs locked in splints are not the simplest of things to post between the bars of the childseat), rescue Mog from the plant pot she's drifted into, and prepare to enter the supermarket, a mere 15 minutes after parking the car.

Ah the joys of post-Christmas shopping. Reduced items, fallen from the shelves and stacked high on the floor, narrowing the aisles until there is barely space for one carefully pushed trolley - no chance at all of doing the push-one-pull-one shuffle with any degree of elegance whatsoever. Not that I had much chance of that any way, to be fair. The mad frenzy of shoppers armed with the knowledge that the following day, January 1st, most shops will be shut or have greatly reduced opening hours; the panic this causes - "quick, I must instantly go out and buy twelve loaves of bread, just in case" "Oh no, the shops won't be open tomorrow; I must immediately purchase six chickens, twenty-seven packets of soup and three bags of rice", "Ah woe is me, the shops are closing, I must buy a three month supply of nappies, one each of every item on the delicatessen counter and at the same time stock up on all my Christmas cards for next year", "Hmmm, this shop seems even more crowded than usual, I think I'll just abandon my trolley crosswise in the middle of the aisle whilst I consider carefully my choice of fresh fruit", and so on.

We weave our way around the shop, collecting as we go the ingredients for a Malteser Mousse, a present for the newest teenager in town, and most importantly of all, as far as Little Fish is concerned, a nice luxury full fat beautifully thick and smooth yoghurt which will do her very nicely as an emergency luncheon. We also somehow manage to gather a large box of microwave popcorn *opens eyes in innocent abandon and whistles unconvincingly* and a bag of chocolate (Little Fish has octopus arms once in a shopping trolley).

It takes us one hour to achieve this, at the end of which we are hot, frazzled, and in my case embarrassed, in Little Fish's case ravenous, and in Mog's case, finally in a good mood (for she is the shopping queen). We queue at the till. We watch as our foodstuffs are scanned through. Slowly, slowly, the cashier examines each article, until I am on edge, waiting for him to inform me that maltesers are rationed and I will have to leave one bag behind, or that 15 bags of maltesers and one yoghurt are a weird combination. Or something. But instead he eventually reaches the final item, scans it, and asks me for my card.

My card, which in Launceston paid for the petrol without quibbling, decides this time to play up. It is scanned through the machine a dozen times, each time it gets to a different part in the process before abruptly informing the cashier that it refuses to accept my transaction. I wish I knew why it did this. My old card did this too - at random times and places, usually calculated for maximum embarrassment or awkwardness. Like the time it allowed me to buy tickets to Florida, but refused to pay for the airport taxi. Or the time it allowed me to buy a holiday, a month's worth of groceries, a full petrol tank, then refused to allow me the sandwich and packet of crisps. It is, apparently, a security measure designed for my convenience. I'd like to have words with the designer of this particular convenience. It is only two weeks since I had my card replaced for doing this. And it is definitely not a problem with my bank balance. Until Bob finishes work my balance is far too healthy! This is naturally of no interest whatsoever to the cashier, who assumes I have simply overspent. Humph.

So I pay by cash instead. And exit, pursued by a glare.

Into the van and I thicken Little Fish's yoghurt for her. She takes two mouthfuls and then hands me the pot, at which point I discover the thickener has turned her luxury yoghurt into playdough. I could model villages with this, but alas, Little Fish can no longer eat it. So instead she lunches on two small bars of chocolate, and I console myself with the knowledge that there was some milk in the chocolate, somewhere, a long time ago. And eat a large pork pie.

On we drive. By this point the girls are no longer in bad moods, and I could quite happily drive back to our cottage and see what the others are doing. But we are now only a mile out of Bude, and it seems a shame to drive all that way without seeing it. So we drive through Bude, come to the parking spaces, where I get far too hot and flustered to actually park (too many people and too small spaces). Instead we turn around, discover we are now facing the wrong way around a one way system, turn around again, and drive out of Bude as fast as ever we possibly can.

We do stop at Widemouth Bay.
Far too windy for the girls to get out, but we park up and enjoy the view for a few minutes, before driving home via Holsworthy. I entertain thoughts of stopping and exploring Holsworthy too, but common sense prevails and instead we return to the cottages. And to silence; everyone else has gone out for the day. No matter; I have coffee, the girls have chocolate, we've had a good drive (and a trip through Hell, and how many people can say that?), and now we can rest before spending the evening with friends.

When the others return I ask them if they've had a good day. They have. They went to Bude.

We are home

A good trip, no hospital visits, no forgotten medications, no arguments, no car breakdowns (well not mine anyway!). A proper post will follow later, just checking in to sort out post and sling a load of washing into the machine before heading back off to feed my parents' cats.

Happy New Year everyone!
Tia