For the last month, Ma Pawpads has graced us with her presence.

She flew into Bristol airport last month, arriving at 8am and was then going to her sisters place in the city where I was going to drive down to collect her from once I’d finished at the Beauty Salon where I had a long standing, regular appointment. Believe me, I really couldn’t risk changing my appointment.  Well, I could have, but I have a feeling that I would have been shunned by polite society, small children would have screamed upon setting their sights on me . . etc.

So, off I set, down to Bristol, enjoying the late summer sunshine, music blasting, motorway traffic behaving.

I’m really impressed by the fact that it doesn’t take me as long as I had expected and I pull up at my Aunties house, patting myself on the back for remembering where she lived, despite not having been there for about 10 years.

I ring the doorbell and as soon as the door is opened I am swept up into an enourmous hug from my Uncle Tim. Propelled into the house while Uncle Tim talks ninety to the dozen in the superfast, really thick Bristolian accent that he has, and that I struggle to keep up with.

To discover, after about 15 minutes, that my Ma is not there.

Not only is she not there, he doesn’t know where she is and wasn’t even aware that she was coming over from America. His wife, my Auntie, is at work. He phones her, I speak to her and discover that she thinks that Ma is flying over on Saturday. Umm, no, I spoke to her the night before while she was at Newark Airport waiting to board her flight.

So, this confusion goes on for a while, until I remember that Ma was flying back with a cousin of mine and that  her father was collecting her from the Airport. Perhaps Ma Pawpads is with him. Uncle Tim is on the case and phones Uncle Brian.

Hurrah, he has Ma. Thank God.

But, he lives in another part of Bristol. A part that I’m not familiar with. Uncle Tim offers to drive to Uncle Brian’s and I can follow him in my car. But first, Uncle Tim needs a coffee.

Yes, of course he does.   I can’t really complain though, I haven’t seen this bloke for years and he’s loving hearing what me and my siblings have been up to and telling me about his kids. I daren’t interupt him to explain about Facebook and how we’re all in touch.

All this time, I’m keeping an eye on the clock, trying to figure out how long it’s going to take Uncle Tim to drink his coffee, for us to drive over to Uncle Brians, to get my Ma (who could easily win Gold for talking bollocks in the Olympics) out of the house and into my car so that I can zoom bac up the motorway to collect B as this was also the first day back at school following the summer holidays.

I find myself staring at Uncle Tim every time he takes a sip of his coffee, wondering if he could possibly drink it a bit quicker.

Finally, we leave the house, and zoom off to find Uncle Brian. . . and hopefully my Ma.

And of course, once I get to Uncle Brian’s, I can’t just whizz in there, grab Ma and leave.   So we go in, have drinks, the Uncle Brian remembers that I was tracing my family tree, and takes me off to his office to show me everything that he’s discovered. To be fair, it was fascinating, (he’s managed to trace his and my Ma’s family back to the 17th Centrury) but I could have done without it today.

Then my Auntie calls us down because lunch is ready.

Lunch?

I don’t have time to fucking eat ~ although my Auntie is from the Philipines and seriously, I’ve never known anyone to cook like her.

A ~ maze ~ ing.

Anyway, we eat a most delicious meal and then we have to go, I’m getting very nervous as I’m checking the time trying to figure out how long it’s going to take us to get home, what the traffic is going to be like and if the radar thingy on my car is working incase there are any coppers out and about on the M5.

But once again my luck holds out. My Auntie announces that she needs to leave soon to get to Frenchay Hospital where she works, and Uncle Brian offers to let us follow him part of the way, using short cuts which will cut about 10 minutes from our journey time.

What a star.

So, I get Ma out of the house and into the car. Uncle Brian insists on putting her suitcases into my car ~ no mean feat, let me tell you. When Ma packs a suitcase, she packs everything.

We make really good time, and I even have time to go home, drop Ma off, stay with her for 10 minutes which also allows Gem to get used to her, before I have to zoom off up to the school.

Two weeks before this, I had managed to quit smoking.

Not anymore.

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.

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.

Remember this post?

M just had a phone call from the Police. Burgular Bill has been in custody since this happened and he went to court on Friday.
He asked for 26 other incidents to be taken into consideration and has been put away for 3 and a half years.

One more scumbag off the streets.

Went to the Tewkesbury Medieval Festival yesterday to celebrate the Battle of Tewkesbury.  Even though it’s not far from where I live, I hardly ever go to Tewkesbury and had never been to the festival before, but was looking on the interweb a few weeks ago, for things to do with Deigo and up this popped.

We dragged my buddy, Emma along with us and had a lovely day. Emma was picked from the audience at one point to play in the band for the Fire~eater. This basically comprised of Emma and a couple of others playing on recorders and tin whistles.  The noise was shocking but the comedy value was priceless. The Fire Eater was great too, very funny and I managed to get this wonderful shot, which I have pimped all over the place.

There were so many wonderful and interesting stalls selling everything and anything. As well as a circus tricks guy there who let everyone have a go on the apparatus. B was fantastic on the Diablo, which I had fun with too, but I preferred something which was basically, 3 sticks. I had to balance the one stick between the other two, then flip it about.  I’m not really good with the describing~ness, so shall leave it there.

The day ended with a recreation of the Battle, but I didn’t get to see any of it as by this point my pelvis had decided to give up, so I went and sat at the back of the field while Emma and B elbowed their way through to the front of the crowd and managed to watch the soldiers.

It was a brilliant day, the weather held out and even got rather warm at some points, and the rain began as we were walking back to the car.

I really love living in England and being surrounded by so much history.

I’ve never done this before, but in for a penny, in for a pound.

This is a photo of me and my siblings, taken last month at one of my brothers’ surprise 40th birthday party. I think it’s rather obvious which brothers’ birthday it was. He’s the one that is obviously a few worse for wear.

I love this photo and I was so determined to get a photo of the six of us together. It wasn’t easy though. Everytime I thought that I had all of us, one of them had wandered off somewhere else.

Two years ago, this month we had the God awful floods here.
Apparently one of the main reasons that Gloucestershire was so badly affected by the sheer amount of rain was that our gully’s were blocked.

Look what’s going around my village at the moment.

I don’t know when it started, but apparently for your birthday, you’re expected to take cakes, sweets and whatnot into school to share with your classmates.

This did not happen when I was at school. In my day, you were lucky if the teacher would even remember to wish you a Happy Birthday, but then, I fucking hated school and did my best not to go on my birthday, so maybe that’s why.

But, having said that, in my day, just going to a party was a big enough treat. Nowadays the kids expect a fucking party bag as well. Full of all kinds of shit, that I’m sure the parents chuck in the bin as soon as the kids backs are turned ~ or is that just me?

Anyway, back from that tangent.  B’s birthday is in August when the school is on holidays, so today I have spent the morning baking M&M cookies for him to take to school to share with his mates tomorrow.

There are thousands of the buggars. Bearing in mind that there are only 12 kids, maximum in B’s class.

I have at least 80 of these cookies ~ and that’s not counting the ones that I’ve eaten.

I made a couple of really big ones for home. Next to a pen to show the sizing scale.

Final products. There were cookies still in the oven when I took this photo, so I have ended up with 3 cookie tines full of M&M cookies as well as a tuperware box.

Considering the amount of coverage that Michael Jackson’s death has received on both the TV and the radio, I’m surprised that it took so long for B to ask me questions.

This conversation took place the day after Micheal Jackson died and I was watching the news.

B ~ “Mummy, who is Michael Jackson?

Me ~ He was a singer and a very good dancer.

B ~ But he’s dead now?

Me ~ Yes, he is.

B ~ How did he die?

Me ~ I think he was poorly.

B ~ Did he take poison?

B is rather obsessed with poison at the moment.  Not sure why or where it’s come from , but we’re hoping that it’s a phase that won’t last long.

Me ~ No, I don’t think so. Although I think he may have taken some medicine.

B ~ But medicine makes you better!

Me ~ Yes, but if you’re really, really poorly it doesn’t always work.

B ~ Like when I was sick after I had that medicine for my cough?

Me ~ Yes. Just like that. But you got better soon afterwards, didn’t you!

B ~ I suppose.      Was he married?

Me ~ Ummm, he was, but I don’t think he was when he died.

B ~ Maybe it’s his Mum then.

Me ~ Maybe who is his mum?

B ~ The lady that they always show on the news, when they talk about him.

Me ~ I haven’t seen a lady.

B ~  Yes. They always show the picture.

Me ~ Ok. I’ll keep an eye out for it.

A few moment later.

B ~ There she is. That’s the lady.

Me ~ No sweetheart, that was how Michael Jackson looked just before he died.

B ~ Freak!

I just let that one go.

So, the countdown is on.

In just 10 days time I will be completing my final stint as an After School Club organiser at B’s school. Seriously, I can’t wait to hand in my bleeper when I finish.

In 12 days, my buddy, Emma and I are driving 341 miles up to Edinburgh to see Duran Duran play at Edinburgh Castle. I’m so excited about this that I may well pop.

And when I come back, B will have finished school for the summer and we’ll be faced with hoping that the weather stays good so that we can find stuff to fill those 7 weeks with.

Then, come September, B will be starting year 4 of primary school, he’ll have had his 8th birthday and I will have freaked out at how he got so old, so quickly.