We have small house guests, which is fine but noisy, messy and persistent.
We have been out today doing parks and picnics with other small friends. Altogether there were eight children ranging from two through to ten, and two very weary adults. Doing the simplest thing seemed to take hours. Literally hours. My friend and I managed to say to each other in three hours what normal people without children say to each other within the first five minutes of meeting. A bit frustrating. It is good that we e-mail each other every day, or by the time we had caught up with the gossip, five years would have passed and everyone involved would probably be in old people’s homes.
I got home and Jason swept the children up and took them to granny’s and then to look at a possible car for me which was all the way over in exotic Kettering. I couldn’t go with them because I had a driving lesson and wouldn’t be back in time. Shame.
I should have either had a sleep or cleaned the kitchen or eaten some tea in the time they were gone. I did none of those things. I picked away at the fatal addiction that is genealogy, until I looked at the time and realized I had ten minutes before a double driving lesson and I had had nothing to eat.
Trying to prepare a nourishing crisp based sandwich in a hurry, I stood up under the kitchen shelf and cracked my temple right on the corner.
I cried. I swore. I felt sick. I thought I might pass out. I thought; ‘How humiliating. They will find me covered in crisps and blood.’
I revived.
I forced down the sandwich even though I had gone off the whole thing, because I didn’t want to faint at the wheel.
The driving instructor came and I paid forty pounds for two hours of sweating and terror.
I came home. Jason gave me a pep talk. It made me cry.
The car in Kettering was a washout.
I would say that on the whole the day was purgatorial with spots of brightness to remind me how utterly awful the rest of the day was.
Now I’m going to add insult to injury and read The Highway Code in the bath. What cheer.
I promise to be more optimistic tomorrow, should the good Lord spare me.
Speaking as a (very, as in totally) lapsed Catholic, I think Purgatory is probably a better place to be in than Limbo as at least there is some hope of redemption . . . ?
Did you take a stiff drink into the bath whilst reading the HC?
Dear Katyboo, at least you are honest about how you feel about driving, whilst so many others just get out and do it badly and scare the crap out of the rest of us. And you know, I am 42, have now been driving since 1983, and I am still not all that good at it. You are not alone.
You see, to me, it adds insult to injury that you have to PAY vast amounts to be traumatised week on week.
All of my family love driving, they don’t understand why i don’t. I am not as bad as my Gran’s ex, however, who didn’t learn till he was over 50. He used to tell everyone he was behind the wheel of something that could kill people. He was an odd, scary man. I never got in a car with him. In terms of confidence and driving ability, he made me look like the Stig.
Crisp sandwiches are the food of the devil. I always end up scratching my asophogus (sp?) when eating them and then bitterly regretting it. I suppose I should thank my lucky stars that I haven’t also hit my head when eating them? (though I did crack my head on an open cupboard door the other day. Ouch, ouch, ouch.
Sharon
Not unless you count fruit tea, which I don’t!
Ginger
Thank you. It’s good to know. Everyone here thinks I’m insane because they all enjoy it!
Jo
Exactly. Jason practically drove out of the womb, as did my dad. It’s so hard to explain.
Welshgirl
They are the food of the devil, but sometimes you just can’t help yourself. Nice bruising today!