enflaming? inflaming? No idea which. I am the worst ESOL teacher/writer ever, sorry.

Call me spoilt, but I do begrudge having to do housework after 9pm. However, Bertha is a bit off-colour, so I had to bring in Jim, the other hoover, who needs someone to push him round. And then the kitchen floor won't mop itself (if only). I'm feeling a bit martyrish about it all. If Hubby were here he'd cheer me up. When I was mowing the lawn this weekend (I know, mowing, it's the first time ever) he said he quite fancied me. Must be a bit of a Felicity Kendall thing - too many episodes of 'The Good Life' during his formative years perhaps - or possibly because I am a lawn mowing virgin, and the surprising thought of me being virginal at anything made him see me in a whole new light. To be honest I saw myself in a new light. Or at least I did for about forty minutes, until I cut my finger when pulling the string-thing to start the engine, and gave up and went back inside. For a cup of tea and a flapjack.
I suppose the other thing to be said for all this tedious mowing/hoovering/mopping stuff (apart from enflaming the loins of my husband) is that it burns calories, which has to be a good thing, doesn't it? Yes, I'm doing the fasting day again today, and apart from the inevitable grumpiness between five and eight pm, it's not been too bad, really. The jury is out as to whether the new regime is working though, because Hubby decided this weekend that our bathroom scales are broken. He replaced them with new ones that make me two kilos heavier. Do I go with the old scales and rejoice, even though I secretly know they don't work properly, or do I start noting down my weight on the new ones and get depressed as I'm far more of a lard-arse than I realised? Not sure. Might just give up on weighing completely and go back to hanging about in the ice cream aisle at Tesco when I want to feel slim and lovely. Yes, that does work. Apparently people here in the East Midlands are the most obese in England (it said so on the Gem 106 news this evening, so it must be true), and, judging by our local Tesco there is some truth to that statistic. So if you happen to see me loitering near the Ben & Jerry's it's only because our bathroom scales are unreliable, honest.
Hmmm, so there were some other things I've been meaning to tell you, but to be honest all I can think about at the moment is the night out at the curry house we have booked for Saturday night. I haven't been out for a meal with my husband for ages and ages and I haven't had a decent curry for ages either. I'm thinking possibly lamb bhuna, bhajis, mango chutney, mint raita, and a naan bread big enough to double up as a spare mattress, all washed down with a nice pint, because the curry place is close enough to walk to. Cannot blooming wait!
Right, better go to bed because I've got an illegal wartime abortion to write about tomorrow (up to eighty six thousand words now, and it's all getting quite serious), which I won't be up to if I'm fuzzy headed from staying up all night writing to you about the delights of asian cuisine.
Night then xxx

Just realised that I only seem to write this when I'm starving hungry these days. So, yes, it is a fast day and I am starving hungry, even more so today because I did my first session of the 'Insanity' workout at the gym earlier on (it's a 60-day intensive fitness programme, and today was day 1). So it may well be a bacon buttie for breakfast tomorrow.
What else? We took the kids sailing on Friday evening. Or, rather, we took them to the sailing club and a really nice instructor took them out in a dinghy whilst Hubby and I sat in the clubhouse and had tea and chocolate biscuits. It was pretty enjoyable, until Twin 2 turned up in tears because she'd been let off the boat to go to the loo and had got lost and fallen down some steps. Luckily she bounces well. I think it's going to become a regular Friday night thing (the sailing, but hopefully not the falling down steps). We only had Hubby here for one night as he had to go back to London to see his friend off at Heathrow, but no matter, because the rest of us were invited over to a BBQ at someone's house on Sunday. Yes, brrr, I wore my very thick jumper just in case, but luckily only the actual BBQ-ing took place outside; I spent most of the afternoon sat on my bum indoors, eating, whilst children ran about playing hide & seek, so we barely missed Hubby at all. Twin 2 told everyone that she'd got engaged to Harry Styles (from One Direction  - not sure about spelling?) and that because he'd kissed her and given her a ring, they had to get married straight away. Not sure if the delusion has anything to do with falling down at the sailing club and delayed concussion, but maybe someone should warn Harry...Right, I think I need to find some diet Coke or sugar-free gum or something, just a pretence of calorific intake will do. And then I'm going to have a really long think about my perfect breakfast. Bye xxx

I'm fantasizing about breakfast. If I get up as soon as my alarm goes off, then it's only 8 hours - and if I get up that early, I might even have time for something exciting like fried eggs. Or, if I stay awake for another hour and a half, then technically it will be tomorrow already, and I could just raid the fridge. Yes, I'm on another 'fast' day... other than not eating, what else has been going on? Hmmm, no dead pets so far this week, so that's good. We got a very nice consolation card from the vet reassuring us that we absolutely did what was best for the undead (no longer) dog and the rat with kidney failure. Ah, I shall almost miss my monthly visits there with sick animals (almost).
Today I have been mostly teaching the present perfect and introducing the present perfect continuous and hoping nobody asks me when you use one instead of the other (because I didn't get as far as reading that page when I was lesson planning). Of course someone did ask, so I just said the difference was very subtle and not to worry about it too much at this stage. Really, I should be a politician, my fudging skills are wasted in the classroom (and I'd probably make a better MP than ESOL teacher - I bet nobody ever asks Harriet Harman difficult grammar questions).
In between teaching grammar reluctantly (Monday & Weds) I have been trying to write the novel. I went to a cafe yesterday to write a scene where my poor heroine goes back to the place it all began. The problem was it's all a bit upsetting (for her, and also for me as I write it), felt a bit tearful, which is slightly embarrassing in the cafe-next-to-Lidl on a Tuesday afternoon, to come over all unnecessary. Anyway, my heroine only got as far as the pub, she's using delaying tactics, and who can blame her? Facing the past will be painful, poor lamb. I will have to get straight down to it tomorrow, and finally get her the closure she needs. But not until I've had fried egg on toast, and possibly the remains of the birthday cakes...(oh, I forgot to say, it was the Twins' birthday at the weekend. They managed to have the longest ever birthday party; it lasted a full twenty three hours. Okay, they only invited two friends, but still. Next year I might suggest something other than a sleepover, that possibly doesn't involve hearing various children shouting/crying on the trampoline and spending all of Sunday afternoon tidying up. I'm thinking cinema or show - something quiet and dark that only lasts two hours tops).
Right, well, the quicker I sleep, the sooner it'll be fried egg time.
Goodnight! xxxx

ps. I was just having a look to see who (if anyone reads this). Of course some people find their way here by a google search, and one poor woman was directed to this blog by putting this in her search engine (I'm not sure she will have found the answer to her query anywhere here, but I like to think I might have been some small comfort...) : "ocado blinis child throw up" 

It's been an eventful week. One of the rats ended up in the rodent version of intensive care on Wednesday. She was looking very poorly so we took her to the vet, who suggested overnight hospitalisation. Then it was the inevitable roller-coaster ride of emotion: would she make it through the night? (yes!) Would she recover fully from whatever was wrong with her by after school time? (no!) Would she be so ill that, despite expensive medical intervention we would still have to give her the lethal injection? (yes!) Would we have been better leaving her in her cage to die quietly (and cheaply) overnight? (quite probably).
So now Rattus Rattus (for that was her name) is buried in a cardboard coffin near the flowering something-or-other (gardening not my strong point), surrounded by some Everyday Value fruit 'n' nut mix to see her on her journey to the afterlife. I have also placed a large potted rose bush over the top of the grave, just so Son doesn't wake up to the aftermath of some frenzied grave-digging fox's carrion feast one morning.
Luckily the vet took pity on us and only charged half price on the rodent intensive care/euthenasia combo (a cynical person might think that this is because he'd already made a fortune on us out of undead Dog's longevity), but I'm still too embarrassed to 'fess up to you how much it actually was.
I think we should just stick to Barbie dolls and imaginary friends in this family as we are clearly not to be trusted with anything with a heart beat.
Cheerio xx

Hello, how are you? I'm hungry, and jittery and full of nervous energy. This is due to me having just started the 'fast' diet. Hubby says I mustn't think of it as a 'diet' but as a new regime, so this is a 'regime change' (there certainly are some violent rumblings, so he may be right). In case you haven't heard of it, the diet - ahem, regime - involves eating normally for five days of the week, but severely restricting your calorie intake on the other two. So today I've had four apples, a couple of slices of ham and oh, about a million cups of coffee - which probably explains the jitteryness. Anyway, the good thing is that because I'm having to use diversionary tactics to stop me thinking about a nice plate of tacos smothered in sour cream and salsa ....mmmm, yummy (no, no, stop that!)...I'm being quite productive (although of course not quite so productive that I've done the downstairs bathroom yet) and I've done all the washing and the washing up and the meter reading and booked the car in for an MOT and all my lesson planning and washed my hair and it's still hours until bedtime and even more hours until breakfast time (I probably will end up cleaning the downstairs bathroom, although there's a reasonable chance I'll end up eating toilet roll smothered in cleaning products and pretending it's tacos smothered in sour cream and salsa...mmm, yummy....no, no, NO!)
I was listening to something on the radio about self-publishing this morning on the way back from my lovely ESOL class, and it reminded me of a conversation I had with my sister-in-law the other week about my book (of which I haven't written a word since before the Easter hols). I was talking about how I'm a bit addicted to writing now, and no longer really care whether or not my manuscript gets picked up by an agent. She said: "Well, I suppose when you create something, it's like a gift that you're giving...but how do you know if it's a gift people want to receive?" Indeed. I now have an image of my magnum opus as an unwanted jar of bath salts, or perhaps a foot spa, with the gift tags still attached. Think I need to do some neuro-linguistic programming on myself and see it instead as a gift people do want to receive (George Clooney smothered in sour cream and salsa, anyone?).
TTFN xxxx