On the up

Shhh…

Don’t tell anyone, but things here are looking up.

My hip is much better. We will not talk about the state of my sinuses, nor my head. Thank God I was born in a time where over the counter medication proliferates.

I am reading Mystery Man by Colin Bateman. It is an utterly delightful change from William Burroughs and I am enjoying it very much.

Tallulah is not coughing, nor complaining of a sore throat. Nor has she broken a limb on the trampoline, nor the BMX challenge course they did yesterday at school. All bodes well for the outward bound holiday, although I may be counting my chickens here.

The cat’s eye is better. I should give her eye cream for three more days but she is now a master of escape and when I chased her this morning she wedged herself under the bed and refused to come out. Nothing to be done. I have decided to ignore her completely and if her eye falls out she will just have to wear that eye patch that Tilly knitted her and serve her jolly well right.

Not only is Oscar better, but we got a letter yesterday saying they had found him a space at the school we want in September after all. I am overjoyed, he is overjoyed. I keep having to pinch myself. I think they were so distressed at the thought of having to confront me in yet another appeal meeting they just caved in. There is something to be said for having the reputation (deserved) of being a recalcitrant harpy.

We have also managed to reschedule the sleepover that Oscar missed when he was ill. This is massive. He is more excited about this than his new school. It is his very ever first sleepover ever don’t you know? We do, because he tells us approximately every twenty five minutes of the live long day.

The people from John Lewis came and fixed our swing seat yesterday. Happy.

The absolutely delightful oven cleaner man came and cleaned my oven yesterday. It was disgusting, and now it is gleaming and shiny and doesn’t smoke, and the light works and it looks like new. It took him an hour and forty minutes to achieve oven nirvana and was £55 well spent. The rest of the house looks like it has been burgled and there are dust bunnies as big as elephants, but the oven is lovely.

We have finally had a garden parasol delivered. We have had parasol based woes in recent weeks. We had one from B&Q. My husband didn’t like it and made us take it back. So, I ordered an all singing all dancing one at vast expense from a company called Achica, who promised much, delivered nothing and were incredibly difficult to get a refund from, so will be getting no business from me again. They tried to explain to me, when I finally got hold of them, that their policy of not contacting the customer, nor knowing where their items were and their failure to reach any kind of delivery deadline, even though it was set five weeks after they had taken my money, was one of the most charming things about them. ‘You see, Mrs Wheatley, we sell high end goods, so you cannot expect us to operate like John Lewis.’ I pointed out that failure to deliver to any conceivable level of customer satisfaction was not classified as a benefit, and being uncontactable, except when you finally lose patience and opened a Paypal dispute against them was not something I thought many designer brands wove into their business plans from the off. They seemed surprised by this.

Eventually we have ordered one from Ikea which arrived today. I do not hold out much hope of this one meeting the exceedingly high standards for umbrella based products my husband has, but we will see. He is cautiously optimistic, and I have reached the point where I really don’t care much any more and can’t bring myself to get wound up, so that’s good.

Richard of the Flashing Blades cut and coloured my hair on Wednesday. This is good, because my hair was so uncontrollable that when I woke up on Saturday morning I looked a bit like Harry Styles and it made me cry. I can cope with looking like Noel Fielding or Bernard from Black Books, but Harry Styles is a male celebrity too far for my delicate nerves. Now I just look like a slightly deranged middle aged woman who does nothing to look after herself, which is exactly what I am. Phew.

The playhouse arrived today and is being erected as I type. By the time the children get home from school it will be ready to be played in. I cannot wait to see their faces.