It’s the little things that eventually get to you – like today, I had a clearish day, except that I had to take Kate to the dentist in the middle of it. So a little bit of work, go and collect her from school, hold her hand under drill fire and back to work for the afternoon. Yes, well that was the plan.

My car won’t start.

The dentist is 12 miles away

There is one bus an hour if you’re lucky, it takes over an hour and then there’s a 20 minute walk.

The appointment is in 55 mins

My car still won’t start.

So I came indoors and phoned school, and the dentist, and the garage.I cleared up the kitchen, and did some laundry and thought I’d sit down & work. Then the phone rang, it was my friend G telling me that pre-school was shutting because the loos had frozen!! ( yes it’s funny, Ben thought it was hilarious when he was telling me later)

I must have sounded slightly stressed because she offered to have Ben for the afternoon – I told her I shouldn’t even have been at home if my car had started. At this point I’m still waiting for the garage to call me back.

So back to some work, but my concentration has been shot, and it’s not very effective, so I do some more laundry so that I am at least achieving something out of the day.

I go up to school and pick up 5 assorted children, only 3 of whom are mine, deliver them back to their homes and pick up Ben from G’s, bumping into one of his pre-school teachers on the way who cheerfully tells me that pre-school is shut tomorrow too and ” we don’t know about Friday yet”

The men from the garage eventually arrive to pick up my car, they get it to start (typical!) but want to take it in to check it over, in theory this is fine by me as I don’t want to be stranded somewhere when it won’t start again, but I’ve just realised that tomorrow is fairly scuppered too – no car = can’t get to library, no preschool = have Ben home anyway. Mum and Dad are planning to come down for the afternoon to field children so I can work. I won’t be escaping to a quiet library but maybe I can salvage something!!

Do people think it’s acceptable to park in a parent & child space with no children in the car?

I just watched as a professional 40-something woman in a smart car ( that’s a nice flashy sort of car not Noddy’s French cousin’s car ) pulled into the just vacated P&C space next to mine, fiddled about putting her sat-nav away, got out and walked into the shops – I called ” excuse me” after her having ascertained she didn’t have a child hidden under a seat or in the boot, but she didn’t hear or ignored me…

so I ripped a page out my diary and wrote her a note which was way too polite in the circumstances but might make her think.

It wasn’t as if the space was a) the only free one in the car park or b) closest to the shops

or that her car was so particularly huge to need a wider space.

SHE JUST DIDN’T THINK Grrrrrr

On a related note I really wish they’d put the P&C spaces somewhere as far from the shops as possible to discourage this lazy parking – there’s a reason Disabled spaces are near the shops quite rightly- but on the whole, so long as there is a trolley park nearby and a pathway from P&C area to the shop there is no need for the spaces to be near the door…

ah well…

We had a great weekend just gone – there were a few “moments”, like driving 4 hours in a car with broken air-con in 27 deg muggy heat – and Charlie having some sort of virusy ear inflammation thing that made him hot, tired and a bit vommitty (all the way home for 3 1/2 hours in a car with broken air-con )I did manage to get quite a bit of knitting done en route there though!

We went all that way oop norf to see Ruthy’s Godparents and to celebrate her G’father’s Installation to his new parish (makes him sound like a boiler ) he was also Licenced ( like a pub) -Anglican jargon is just fabulous!

We arrived on Saturday afternoon having done the Swimming/ballet/frantic stressed packing thing at home most of the morning, the new Vicarage is very impressive – easy peasy to lose 6 children in it and have a cup of tea in peace! the trampoline in the covetably flat ( can you tell ours isn’t?) garden went down a treat too.

Dinner, wine, chat and catch up and it was time for bed ( *very* disturbed night cos of Charlie feeling poorly poor lamb. )

Sunday brought food mountains for all the lunch guests – Mr FF was a stalwart at carrot chopping and then the Main Event at 3pm – it was a fantastic service, the ( huge) church was packed with friends, family and parishioners from jobs old & new.There was a wonderful sense of welcome and of this really being the start of a great ministry for M&H, we felt honoured to be part of it, I found it ( positively) challenging for me personally too – lots of food for thought.

C was a star -he seemed much better and coped remarkably well… relapse was later

thankfully our lot had an INSET day on Monday so Sunday night was a collapse in front of the prerecorded Canadian Grand Prix. I didn’t see it all, but the end was phenomenal ( in between my 2nd sock casting on!) I am a closet petrol head (shh don’t tell) and though I prefer the smell of engine oil in the flesh to watching it on TV, you couldn’t help but be impressed – that boy ( face it, he’s a boy!) is going to go far! We then did some finishing off of the food mountain and drank a bit more wine, and had more chance to catch up, before we left reasonably leisurely on Monday morning ( roads were astoundingly busy though ) no knitting this time as I was dealing with C, and big brickbats to the broken coffee machine at Cherwell Valley services… I *needed* a latte then!

all in all a very good – if tiring weekend, it’s always good to see friends, and this was an extra special time.

Charlie’s better now! he’s been off school today – but boy is he going back tomorrow!