I’ve always loved to read. I don’t care what, I don’t care where. Reading for pleasure is something that I do everyday.  Sometimes, it even takes priority over more important things like, cooking, cleaning and more often than not, sleeping.

But for pretty much all of last year I lost my reading mojo.  It just upped and buggared off without a word of warning and left me, not knowing what to do.

I joined the Book Club on the forum, ordered the books from the Library, even started to read the books, but it was no good. I just couldn’t get into anything.

I have hundreds of books. Some are permanent fixtures in my life. Books that I read loved and have kept to re~read, over and over again. Others are on my Mount TBR (to be read) but none of them could keep my attention for more than a chapter or two.

But, I’m pleased to say, that it’s back.  I don’t know where it went, and I’m afraid to ask, in case it decides to buggar off there again, but my reading mojo is well and truly alive and I’m loving it.

In the past 8 months I’ve read over 20 books.  Not a great amount, I know, but considering the fact that I do have a family who keep me very busy, I’m more than happy with this number.

I’ve got the Book club up and running on the forum again, although time will tell if this is as successful as it has been in the past, and I have devoured six books in the past 2 months.

Now though, I’m just waiting for the library to email me back to let me know that the three books that I ordered almost two weeks ago are in stock.

I also found a gift card that I got for either my birthday or Christmas last year for Waterstones and spent a lovely two hours on their website trying to choose and decide what books to buy. I finally decided after checking that both books were in stock. I chose two of Phillippa Gregory’s books from her thrilling Tudor series.  I ordered and within twenty minutes, had the email confirmation come through telling me that, of course, one of the books was out of stock. And of course, the one book that has been delivered is out of sync with the ones that I’ve read so far, so that’s just no good to me at all.

The book is in the kitchen at the moment, and I keep walking past it, picking it up and stroking it and reading the blurb on the back cover. I’m so desperate to read it and I don’t think I’ll be able to hold out for much longer.

Excuse me while I go and click “send and receive” on my email account again.

I know, I know. I’ve been a very bad blogger.

But in my defence, it IS the school holidays and I do have an 8 year old B to keep entertained and an M who works the worlds shitiest hours.

So far though, this summer we have been all over the place.  Thorpe Park, Chessington World of Adventures, Alton Towers, Warwick Caste (x2) and Legoland.

I’m sure I’m missing something out, but you get the general idea.

It was also B’s 8th birthday on Monday. 8! I have a son who is 8!

And yes, I am far too young and attractive to have an 8 year old ~ I was indeed a child bride and he was born way before he was conceived*.

*Some of this may not, actually be true.

Facebook. A handy little way of keeping tabs on people that you don’t actually have the time (and in some cases, the inclination) to speak to in your day to day life.

Lots of old schoolpals and work colleagues have a nasty habbit of popping up from all over the place and sending friend requests.

And then there are the status updates. Some people post every detail of their life on there. No matter how small, how big and how private.

Don’t get me wrong. I love hearing about the safe arrival of my cousins baby, but I don’t need to know about MAP that my neice has had to rush out to buy nor that she has posted that her mum (my sister) still thinks that she’s a virgin.

And now the groups that people have joined have started to pop up on my screen. How lovely to know that people that I went to school with are fans of rough sex.

Now, I know that I’m a fairly private person. Even though I have a blog, I don’t tell everyone everything. I have three people that have requested my friendship on FB that I haven’t accepted yet, as I don’t want them to know what I’m up to, how much my friends and I swear or anything really.

I’ve deactivated my FB account about 3 times in the past few years, but in the end, I’m just too nosy and end up logging on again to see what everyone’s up to.
So, really, I suppose I should stop moaning about it.

I was diagnosed via the internet at the beginning of this week.  Internet though! How crappy. I’m not even allowed to go to see my Doctor if I’m feeling crappy and have at least two of the symptoms. Which I did.

You’re basically sent to an NHS website to answer a load of questions, if you say yes to enough of them, you’re given a code number and told to send someone to go and collect your Tamiflu for you.

What a kerfuffle.

So, now I have my Tamiflu and am thankfully beginning to feel better. Poor B has been left to entertain himself over the past few days, so because of this the house is an utter disgrace, but I’m not being too cross with him, as he must have been bored rigid, due to me not being allowed to go anywhere or do anything.

I’m hoping to be better by Monday as we’ve made plans to take B and one of his cousins to Legoland.

Just the ones who misbehave and think that they can hide behind their mothers to sort out their battles.

There is a mum at schoolwho seems to think that her kids can do no wrong and at the slightest thing, she storms into the office and threatens to move her kids.
Shame she’s never done it though. They’re horrid.

Anyhoo, I wasn’t in a great mood. I’d just been crying in the car, due to some questions that B had been asking that I was finding hard to answer* and as we were walking through the gates, B’s cousins arrived.
The older kids at school are off on their residential today, so spirits were very high.
B ran over to one of his cousins to show his pencil case, and this kid, lets call him Jacob, put both hands out and pushed B in the chest.
B went flying, but somehow didn’t fall, I’d seen it all and shouted at Jacob.
“Oi. What do you think you’re doing?”
He didn’t say anything, but his eyes were darting around looking for his mum.
I bent down to him and said “If you touch my son again, I’m going to make your life so miserable at this school. There’s only just over a week left of school and you’re away for the rest of this week. Stay away from B.”
Then I walked off around the corner with B to his class.
When I came back towards the gate his mother was waiting for me.
She asked what Jacob had done and I told her.
She said that Jacob had told her that B had been pestering them.
I said “No, B was showing something to his cousin. He wasn’t even talking to Jacob”
Jacob then started shouting that B had been bothering him and I just looked at him and he shut up.
His mum, just said, “Right, never mind, we’ll just leave it”
I said, “No. Your son just pushed B for no reason. If this were the other way round you’d be ranting and raving and complaining to the school. Maybe I ought to go and have a word with the Head?”
The other mum, just said “Oh come on Paws, we don’t need to do that, do we?” and kind of laughed.
I told her that I’d leave it this time, but if it happened again, I’d be making an official complaint.

The fucking woman does my head in. I wish she’d just move her kids instead of threatening to do it.

This is the same woman who complained when there was an “incident” at the beginning of the year involving Jacob and B.

They had been playing roughly and another kid was hurt. Not seriously, but enough to cry. Jacob and B both had their playtimes cancelled for the rest of that week. Fair enough. B knows that they’re not supposed to play roughly and as far as I’m concerned, he misbehaved ~ he gets punished.

But the other mum didn’t agree. She went into the office on the following day and kicked up a storm so the punishment was cancelled.    I was not impressed with this, at all. So off I trundled into the school. Told the Headmistress that I wasn’t happy about it. Told her that if she dishes out a punishment, she has to see it through, otherwise the children would never learn their lessons and wouldn’t take her seriously in the future.  I also told her that if she didn’t punish the two boys, I wouldn’t allow her to punish B ever again, as she can’t just pick and choose what rules to enforce.

The punishment was reinforced and Jacob’s mother didn’t speak to me for about two wonderfully quiet weeks.

*My Dad died 15 years ago today and B had been asking me about him on the drive to school.

I’ve been helping the run the After School Club at B’s school for over a year now.  When I first started doing it, it was just me and the woman (who was weird as fuck) who had been doing it for five years.   She had plans on moving up from the AS Club to becoming a TA, but B’s school is tiny and the two TA’s who were already there weren’t leaving for love nor money.   She was also desperate for a baby. Her words not mine, and I think that working at the school was a way for her to surround herself with kids as she had no luck in concieving.  These are all things that she told me within the first hour of me meeting her.  Why she felt the need to share such things with me, I’ll never know.

Then, out of the blue, last September she handed in her notice. She’d had a huge tax rebate, her husband was going to be having major surgery so she decided to nurse him back to health and then start looking, in earnest for a TA job.  Bravo I thought. Somebody who is actualy going out for what they want. There aren’t enough people like that, in my opinion.

So then the search for another person to join the AS club began.  The main person who would be running it as well as doing all of the crappy jobs that go with it, was eventually given to a lovely girl, of about 20.  Let’s call her Rebecca. And then another position was created and another Mum got that job. Let’s call her Cindy.

Cindy is, in short, a shit stirrer.  She caused so much trouble with her lies and stirring that I actually considered moving B to another school. Thankfully, I came to my senses and had a nice long chat with B’s teacher, who put everything into perspective for me and I’m once again very happy with the school that B goes to.

She’s also one of the reason’s that I have handed in my notice at the AS club and won’t be doing it anymore after this month.

Last week, or it may have been the week before I had my appraisel at the school. Although I’m leaving, it’s one of those things that just has to be done.

The Head even said as much as the success of the after school club was down to me.
And they asked if there was anything they could do to stop me from leaving. But I said no and was perfectly straight with them about some of the things that Cindy had told me about the way that B had been treated by the teachers at the school and that I was just sick and tired of all of the backstabbing, the gossip and the lies.

The Head and the Secretary told me that they had already had complaints about Cindy and her behaviour and that they had suspected for a while that she was the reason that I was leaving.
The following day, Cindy had her appraisal.
Cindy did not have such a good one.  She sent me a text the  afternoon after her appraisal saying that the Head had ripped into her.
The Head had had complaints that Cindy was talking (gossipping) with her friends about some of the kids at school, and some other parents had overheard and told the head.
Cindy came out of the office after the meeting and just burst into tears. She’s been told that the only reason that she wasn’t sacked was because none of the other parents were willing to sign anything, and that the school are keeping a very close eye on her. She was also made to re~sign her confidentiality agreement.

The thing is, that I know the above to be true. She does gossip with her little group of shitstirrers about the kids and their parents, and I’m not surprised that it’s got back to the Head, as our school is so small, so it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Cindy and the Head don’t like each other either, and this really hasn’t helped matters. Cindy is always bitching to me about the Head and isn’t discreet at all.
Her son goes up into the final year in September, which the Head teaches and her son is in a complete frenzy about it because Cindy keeps telling him (and anyone else who will listen) that the Head is a bully and that she doesn’t like boys unless they’re the weird little creepy good boys. So now Cindy’s son is all at the thought of being taught only by her next year.
I’ve asked her why she doesn’t just move her son to another school and have it over and done with, but she says that she doesn’t want to move him again (this is his 2nd school) and she doesn’t want him to miss out on the fun in the final year.
But. If he’s so worried about the Head he’s not going to have a good final year is he?
But, if it was your child and you truly believed this, wouldn’t you move him?

Look at what I bought today.

Check out the packaging! It’s the good old fashioned packet that we had back in the day.

I wish I’d bought more than one packet now though.

Today I went to the Hygienist.  Because I have such sensitive teeth I have to be numbed up for even the most basic clean and scrape. And because I’m a freak my nerves on the left hand side of my face are not where they should be ~ so lucky me, I had to have an extra injection to numb me up!

The numbness is starting to wear off now.Thankfully. I popped into Asda after the dentists to pick up a few bits and bobs, but the whole of the left side of my face was droopy, I couldn’t smile, I couldn’t smile and I think I was dribbling.   The checkout girl asked if I needed any help with my packing ~ which I did, but it was just easier to shake my head, pack my bits and bobs and get out of there as fast as possible.

I still can’t open my mouth properly after lying in the chair for 20 minutes with my mouth wide open and I think I can feel where the needles went in.

Ouch!

So. I’m going to be soooo rich.

I’m going to have so much money that I shall have to hire a Ghost Writer for this here blog of mine ‘cos I’m just going to be so damn busy spending all my lovely lolly.

Guess what happened?

Lottery?    Nope.

Dead relative leaving a huge legacy?      Nope.

This morning I got the following email and all I need to do is fill in the details about myself and I’ll be sorted.

Attn: Parcel bearer,

This is to notify you of a parcel containing an a cheque worth 535,000.00GBP(Five Hundred And Thirty Five Thousand Pounds) issued to us by one Mrs.Cindy Williams in your favour through random selections of email users worldwide.

She is running a foundation in Africa to help the less priveledge all over the world presently not in the country.You can reach her on +44-703-596-0912 for further instructions.

She has authorized us to issue it to you. She left in our office,your email to enable us inform you so you can come for claim immediately.
You are required to fill in the below form for confirmation of claim:

Full Name:
Delivery Address:
Age:
Occupation:
Phone:

Note: You are only responsible for DHL security keeping fee 35GBP which is included in your winning cheque as she has already made payment for the delivery of your parcel.DHL West Africa Position: Dispatch Officer Contact:
Mr.Ali Malik Email: dhldeliveryservices07@yahoo.com.hk Tel:+2347038462046

So, if I’m not about for a while ~ don’t worry. I’ll just be chilling here.

Oh, you’ve just got to love Half Term, haven’t you?  Well, no, you don’t really actually.   When B is at school, I find myself really looking forward to Half Term ~ but I have since decided that this is mainly because I fucking hate running the After School Club and I’m desperate to have a break.

I do of course, adore having all of those extra hours to spend with B but he gets bored quickly, as do all kids and trying to come up with stuff to keep him interested is a constant battle. Not easy when you live in England with the shitty weather that we are of course famed for.

Last Wednesday I had B’s cousin over to spend the day.  I don’t know how, but I always seem to forget how noisy two boys can be together and the absolute bollocks that they talk.

I spent the day biting my tongue as I listened to B and his cousin Micheal chatting.  Micheal is almost a year older than B, so of course, knows so much more than B and everything that he says is law. Cannot be argued with at all.

At one point I was stood in my kitchen listening to Micheal holding forth and telling B that Mini’s can’t go faster than 60MPH.

From experience I know that it’s not worth putting the kids right.  Some, and I include Micheal in this, will argue with you until they are blue in the face that they’re right, and over the past almost 8 years, I have decided that it’s just not worth raising my stress levels arguing with a kid.