Christmas is Coming

How excited can three kids possibly be? I'm not sure that we'll make it through to Christmas in one piece!

Ed - excitable at the best of times - is getting up even earlier in the morning. Given that the alarm goes off at 5.55 every morning, which is early enough in my book, I am findng hearing his voice singing carols more annoying than charming. He can't wait for his sisters to wake up so that they can make a camp or set up a stage to perform a Christmas pantomine. I blame the schools!! No - I'm joking, although there is so much Christmas related activity so early in December in their classes, that they are revved up with joy and anticipation by the time the term actually finishes.

We're getting our tree on Saturday - and then I think I'll feel Christmassy. Maybe I'll make some mulled wine to get into the spirit of the season, while we decorate it. I do make a rather good mulled wine -although the large quantity of rum added to it along with orange juice, cinnamon sticks and brown sugar, can lead to dangerously inebriated behaviour. Or it did last year.... but that's another story!!

Zzzzzzz

Ed and Martha have gone (on the train - cue squeals of ecstasy!!!!) to stay with their cousins for the weekend. They are terribly excited - the lovely house in the country-side, deep in the Scottish Borders, with a farm just up the road.

And we've got Hattie to ourselves for a night. I was busy today so Rog had a day with her - and took her out for tea. And later I bathed her and put her to bed, with no annoying older siblings to disturb her. Life is definitely easier with only one child although I suppose the house does feel rather empty. We've got a good evening ahead - Rog is cooking and I'm watching X-Factor with a nice glass of wine.

I read 'Room'. I was quite amazed by it, and really moved too. What a strange and unforgettable book.

I'm tired - can you tell? I've got lots of projects on the go, in different areas of my life, including an article coming out in The Guardian newspaper in a couple of weeks time. I'm looking forward to having some time off work at Christmas - just to sleep and read and generally catch up with things.

An early night I think.

Christmas Plans

Four weeks to Christmas..... four weeks! I haven't done anything at all. No Christmas shopping, no planning, no thinking, no decking the halls. Up here in Geordie-land, most people are 'all-in' at this point. Their tree is up, their presents bought and wrapped and the turkey ordered.

I'm half in admiration and half jealous - with just a dash of bewilderment thrown in - ok that's more than a whole but you know what I mean. I can't get Christmassy in November, however if I'm going to rely on online shopping I'd better get a move on otherwise the only thing that will arrive in time for Christmas is, well, not a lot.

I hear you asking what I want....

Well seeing as you ask, an iPad 2 would be fabulous - some chance - and a puppy (loads of time to look after a puppy!!), so I'm probably looking at some books, and maybe some luscious Jo Malone goodies if I'm very lucky.... which isn't too bad. The best present will be a couple weeks off work. Family time will be lovely - although Hattie's ruling the roost these days (was there ever a time that she didn't?)so I'm feeling a little weak, as well as excited, at the prospect of Yule-tide celebrations.

I expect I'll come over 'all Nigella' at some point soon, although being a working woman again has dampened down some of my more ambitious culinary plans. Sleep has become very important - and I haven't seen Nigella draped in fairy lights planning the next day's lessons in between icing cakes and preparing 'impromptu' mid-week suppers. Maybe I just haven't looked carefully enough.

I'm about to start reading Emma Donoghue's 'The Room'- or Keith Richards' autobiography, I can't decide which. Maybe I'll start them together.....

Still Here....

I'm waiting for the chicken casserole to cook, and I've just finished an online grocery shop to arrive in a couple of days. It's my day off from work, and as usual there's lots to do. It's lovely just pottering around though, doing the stuff I used to do before work dominated my waking hours.

I've taken and picked up the kids from school (what used to be mundane is now appreciated) and watched Martha playing her violin in her concert this afternoon. I would like to return to the time when all I had to do was 'home-stuff' although as my mum reminded me recently, it's not as if those three years away from work were hassle free. Recovering from aggressive cancer with a dreadful prognosis, kind of took up some time!

I'm resolved to write on my blog at least once a week, if not twice - work should not be able to encroach upon my time the way that it does.

It was Ed's birthday last weekend. He's 8. It's practically impossible to process how it might be that a tiny baby in a spotty babygro has become this gangly, charming impossble boy. But it has. And time marches on as the kids grow up and somehow it's nearly Christmas again. I look back on my blog to my Christmas posts over the past couple of years and I marvel how things have progressed for me on all sorts of levels.

I'm not reading as much as I have been - and I'm suffering for that. However I'm limping through novels in record slow time. Most frustrating. At the moment I'm reading 'The Tiger's Wife' by Tea Obreht. She writes like an angel - extraordinary. I'd recommend it if you need to be transported far far away.....

Sorry

I know - I haven't been around. Work is proving quite hard going - just trying to balance it with the kids is really quite tough. And I'm so busy that I'm kind of neglecting lots of apects of my life, including my blog.

Anyhow, I'm hoping the work-life balance starts to get a little easier....sometime soon!

Working Blues

So - now I'm working flat out. And it's tiring - and stressful - and just so hard leaving the kids.

Martha's just had a complete meltdown.

"I don't want you to go to work, Mummy. I want you to take me to school every day."

She sobbed for half an hour this evening curled onto my lap like a little baby. I think she felt like one at that point.

I feel pretty low at the moment. If we didn't need the money I wouldn't be doing it - not when the kids are still so small. We've been through a lot - the kids have been through loads in their short lives, nearly losing their mum before they'd even started school. I know most women have to work.... I know it's nothing so monumental. But for our family just at the moment, the dramatic change feels pretty monumental. Not much I can do though really if we're to continue paying that blasted mortgage!

Any advice out there for me???

Home Again... Holidays Over

I've just been shopping with the kids. And now I need to lie down in a darkened room to renew my breathing abilities. All three needed new school/nursery shoes. The two older ones needed new plimsols for PE. Ed needed the new regulation black shorts/white t-shirts needed now he is in the Junior school. And I spent a fortune yesterday online buying them uniform.

The coats are going to have to wait intil my first pay-cheque (and there was me wondering why I'm going back to work!) Until then they can squeeze into last year's ones.

Children are so expensive....so expensive....so expensive

By the way the floorboards look fantastic. I did have a small sense of humour failure when I came home to the whole house covered with a layer of wood-dust, but now I've regained my sunny outlook (ha ha).

Back to Frankenstein.... Blog, Facebook, Twitter stop distracting me!