I found the launderette, despite the lack of satnav, managed to make it through the blizzard...brrr, it's a bit parky at the moment, isn't it? I still haven't actually managed to order a new washing machine though, because my new credit card has to be activated before use by the account holder...who is of course in Afghanistan. Bummer. Oh well, the trip out in the arctic conditions to get the washing done was the highlight of the day today. That and making Easter 'nests' out of the left over Coco Pops (left over because, since the rat poo ingestion incident the other week, everyone  - understandably - prefers Minibix) and some mini eggs.
The day almost got really exciting just before bedtime, when Twin 2 looked out of the window and then started screeching, "Quick, quick, Daddy's come home!" Of course, it wasn't him, just some other random chap in combat kit walking down the street. If it had been him it would have trumped the launderette trip and the homemade Easter nests hands down, but sadly we'll have to wait another couple of months for that one.
Right, bedtime for me, now xx

holidays...

Hello. Sorry, I know it's been a while. It was the breathless excitement of finishing that essay and the whole whirlwind end-of-term thing. I've now finished the taught bit of my masters. There's still loads to do, but I don't have any more academic stuff to work on, it's just writing short stories and chapters towards the novel now - the nice bits. Quite wierd to have time to watch telly in the evening and not have to get on with set novel/essay/critiquing - tonight I sampled the delights of the hairy bikers (it was bakery porn, really - whilst they were hoofing down Hungarian scones, I was eating the last two gherkins in the jar and thinking wistfully about cream teas).
Tonight I'm sharing a bed with Twin 2, who has a hideous cough. I'm stocked up with her inhaler, bottle of water and box of tissues and am psychologically prepared for a very interrupted nights sleep. Bless her. Luckily I have diddly-squat to do tomorrow, so lack of sleep is not a problem, hurrah. Oh, well, I do actually have to take a huge load of washing to the launderette because the washing machine has just broken (and so has the sat nav in the car, wonder if the end-of-term thrill has affected my electric aura and caused me to fuse any appliance I touch? And will I be able to find my way to the launderette now?). And I also have to take my son to the garden centre to spend his birthday money (is it normal for a ten-year-old to want to spend his birthday money on plants? no, thought not).
Anyway, so what has been happening for the last week? Hmmm....(pause whilst I cast my mind back)...
The twins had a go at being body guards in a shopping mall on Saturday. We'd been to see Pirates with some friends as Son's birthday treat in a mall in Derby. When we took the girls to the loo afterwards there was some worried looking teen and her mate hanging around. They asked if they could walk out of the toilets with us as some other girls were threatening to beat one of them up. I sympathised; I have vague memories of girls threatening to beat me up and having to hide in loos or library (although I also seem to remember that as soon as I started wearing blue eyeliner and scrunch-drying my hair these threats seemed to stop - a top tip I perhaps should have passed on to the troubled Derby girl). So I told one twin to hold on to each of her hands and pretend she was an auntie and out we strolled. My girls may be only six, but nobody is going to mess with them, so the Derby girl was saved a punch-up (or more likely, a bit of squawking and hair pulling).
Other than that, we're just pootling along in holiday mode (which means that I wake up at six thirty when Twin 2 comes in and asks if they can watch 'Milkshake' or play on the Wii, I mumble something that she translates as a yes, and then I wake up again two hours later to goggle-eyed children and cereal all over the living room floor, then I make breakfast, set Bertha to work on the living room floor, and think hopefully about the possibility of going for a whole day without having to yell at anyone - I almost managed it today...).
Right, Twin 2 has stopped coughing, so now might be a good time to go to bed and try to get some shut-eye before she starts again.
Night then x

Wah-hey!

Wah-hey! I have just finished the scary essay and submitted it to Turnitin (electronic anti-plagiarism site - although I hardly think I'm at risk of plagiarising anyone,  as I can't imagine that anyone else in the world will have written anything like the pseudo academic twaddle that I have managed to cobble together). I honestly have no idea how it will do. I tried really hard to answer the (really complicated) question, so I just have to hope that's good enough. Luckily everyone else was also having problems with it and one of my peers (blimey, it is a bit wierd calling a twenty-four year old bloke my peer) worked out that the scary essay only amounts to one twenty fourth of the total marks for the masters course. I wonder if being up half of last night with a combination of a huge ironing pile and a small girl having a dream about being eaten by pirates counts as extenuating circumstances if it's not?
As a result of my finishing the essay, the washing has not been done, nor the downstairs bathroom (although Bertha has kindly hoovered the living room floor, bless her). The cleaning rota is frowning at me in a matronly way, and I'm fantasizing about picking up a big fat advance for the novel I'm writing and spending it on employing a cleaning lady (and also getting a Brazilian blow dry - well I think it's justifiable, after all, I'll have to look good for all my book-signing tours and interviews on This Morning, etc.)
I now have almost a whole novel (Hallucinating Foucoult by Patricia Dunker - I've started it and it's pretty good so far) to read in time for tomorrow's workshop. Luckily the workshop is starting late tomorrow, not until 2pm, so I might just do it if I make a start tonight.
Must go. Take care xx

'I am a genetic clone'

Hi, how are things? I've just been sewing labels saying 'I am a genetic clone' onto the front of the girls' dresses. It's science dress up day tomorrow, and I didn't realise until this week that it was a whole school thing. I knew that son had to dress up as he brought a letter home about it. He decided to be a solar flare, so I bought an orange hoodie and some gold streamers etc. for that, but then when I realised dress up day applied to the Twins as well, I just lost heart with the whole thing. I think school dress up days are probably brilliant if you only have one child, and you have lots of time and creative energy. But, frankly, when you have three it's a bit of a pain in the bum. I contemplated having them go as matter and anti-matter, but that would entail mutual annihilation - and then they wouldn't get to have tea at Erin's house, which would cause a bit of a brouhaha, not to mention the end of the known universe...unless Son decided to go as Higgs Boson, in which case everything would be astro-physically okay, I guess. However, as Son is intent on being a solar flare (and what's more, we have an orange hoodie with streamers attached that will otherwise go to waste), the calming effect of Higgs Boson will be absent, and I don't want to risk the destruction of reality as we know it so...that's why they are going as the little biological miracles they are, bless 'em.
I'm starting to ramble  a bit, aren't I? I should really go to bed.
Night then xxx

Thanks Lion Foods for remembering Mother's Day!

The package was chocolates, hurrah. But the hoody was too small (in retrospect perhaps I was a little ambitious ordering one in a size eight...). But the most mysterious thing of all was that although the card that came with the chocolates said "To the woman I love, Happy Mother's Day, Hubby denied all knowledge of them.
I was briefly excited by the thought of a secret admirer, but the excitement was swiftly followed by feeling well creeped-out. After all, what kind of a man shows his ardour by sending you something on Mother's Day? Only some oedipal wierdo. So the flush of giddiness was replaced by thoughts of being stalked by some strange, probably bearded, chap. Eventually Hubby remembered that he'd entered a competition to win free chocolates for mother's day, but forgotten about it. So it turns out they were from him and not beardy wierdy oedi after all.
Not sure how I feel about the whole thing now. I mean, obviously I'm relieved not to be the victim of a beardy wierdy oedi stalker. And I'm also grateful for the Mother's Day gift. But am I actually grateful to Hubby (who had forgotten all about Mother's Day, and I know I should forgive him, what with him being stuck out in Afghanistan and all that, but I'm not sure I do because my Son, lovely as he is, delivered breakfast in bed by waking me up for it at 7.30 on Sunday morning, and all I seemed to do for the rest of the day was wash up, oh, and the hoody was too small, thus reminding me once and for all that I am not and never will be a size eight, etc.) or grateful to Lion Foods for picking his competition entry? Lion Foods, I guess. Thanks Lion Foods for remembering Mother's Day!

Hi, no, before you ask, I still haven't finished that blooming essay.

Hi, no, before you ask, I still haven't finished that blooming essay. Last night I wrote one sentence and played about cutting and pasting paragraphs but it's all still pants. However, it's not all bad news in the Waif house. Tomorrow is mothers' day and I know it's not going to pass unnoticed. How do I know this? Because I have made plans...at the moment the breadmaker is making dough so I can bake some cinnamon rolls - all the kids will have to do is pop a couple in the microwave and bring them upstairs and voila, breakfast in bead in the morning (without the risk of burnt toast setting off the fire alarm). Also, the day after Hubby went back to Afghanistan I had one of those ebay moments - you know when you're feeling really low and you think that if you just click on the 'buy now' button you'll feel a whole lot better? Well I ended up buying a hoody, which I don't really need, and when it arrived I began to feel that all-too-familiar post-retail-therapy guilt, when I suddenly remembered that it was nearly mothers' day. Hurrah, kids very happy to give me a nice present, and as the hoody is now a gift, waiting upstairs in a silver gift bag for presentation alongside cinnamon rolls, so I no longer need to feel guilty about it. Furthermore, a package arrived in the post this morning with a note saying 'do not open until March 18th' on it, which is very exciting (I'm thinking maybe chocolates...must try to resist shaking the package and guessing).
Right, I might just have a little look at the scary essay again now, whilst a DVD is on and kids are gazing in silent wonderment at the cinematic genius that is Alvin and the Chipmunks (the squeakwell).
Bye x

I'm still avoiding the scary essay.

Hi, how are you? The kids are having a 'picnic supper' in front of the telly, for the second night running. Does this make me the laziest mum in NATO? Probably. Do I feel guilty? Not really. I did, however cook myself a Linda McCartney recipe, which was basically lentils and rice and some tins of tomatoes - but I think the kids are happier with salami, tomatoes and chocolate biscuits in front of Tracy Beaker.
Last night Twin 1 leapt into my bed at silly o'clock with an unspecified nightmare (unspecified because I lacked the capacity to ask her at that time in the morning). This is the third night running, and I can't cope with waking up from a mosh pit of limbs again tomorrow, so tonight she is sharing a bed with her sister (there's no school tomorrow because they have an INSET day  - referred to by the Twins as an 'insect day', they're a bit muddled because their science topic is mini beasts at the moment, so I think they're under the impression that all the teachers are going to go to school dressed as ladybirds or something tomorrow).
I'm going to try to pull a late one tonight and get through a bit of the scary essay. I keep procrastinating. Suddenly looking at summer dresses or funny videos of talking dogs online seems way more important than writing two thousand words on realism in the novel. I realised today, in class, that the other students are equally rabbit-in-the-headlights about this essay, which was a relief, so I asked our tutor for some clarification. In a Yoda-ish way, he looked mysterious and said something along the lines of "Refer to the set novels, you must." Which seemed helpful at the time, but now, back in front of the laptop with a mere eighteen hundred words still to write, seems less helpful.
I should go and do housework-y stuff now. If I write more later, it's because I'm still avoiding the scary essay.
Ta ra x