A Humdrum Mum

A while ago I was either tidying up and chucking out, or getting ready to move, I can't remember and I had to make up my mind what to do with the toddler books. All the Thomas the Tank Engine ones, Dear Zoo, Hungry Caterpillar etc. Board books that survived the sucking and chewing, dearly beloved by Elf and his parents alike. Of course I wouldn't chuck it, I would store  it. But then something happened, oh yes life, and I didn't get around to the rest of my tidying.I had in my head that I would keep these books for Elf to read himself. And now he does read them. We take turns to read pages of his Thomas board books. It helps because he knows the stories, and the engines' names, but not well enough to cheat!  He read Dear Zoo all by himself the other day, we hadn't read it for absolutely ages. A bit of role reversal really, because I found myself doing the flaps! He was most pleased with himself too, giving his confidence a boost. I am glad I kept those books.

The last six months at work have been terrible, the darkest days of my career. Why? I don’t want to say I was bullied, but I was abused at work. An abuse of power. A colleague was promoted to be my manager, and that’s when the difficulties started. Cue months of anger, frustration, stress, headaches… I went to HR and got some good advice. I went to the doctor to put it on record. I got put on a plan, not quite a disciplinary but a coaching plan. Approaching 40 and being put on a coaching plan? I felt it was undeserved. But then so was the appraisal that, had it gone through, I would have been on a disciplinary! I’ve been doing this job for 11 years, so what’s changed? The management… My plan would last 60 days, with weekly meetings, and consisted of not embracing the company not communicating effectively (with no evidence provided at all) not finding quick positive solutions to problems This is what I was always told: Don’t stir things up, you don’t know what they will do They a...

Dang and blast, as Boggit says. Or is it Bean? Elf starts talking about dressing up as a prince and wanting to make a crown. Then it dawns on me. I read the letter in the bookbag on the first day back about the Royal Wedding Menu (cheese or ham flatbread), but I didn't really read the rest of the letter. The first paragraph reads: Children are invited to dress up as a prince or princess to celebrate the Royal Wedding. Double dang and blast. Elf, Elf I love you, but we only have 14 hours to make a crown, I paraphrase from Queen's Flash Gordon. At least it involves no sewing. Thirty minutes later, having raided the two art'n'craft trays, this is my creation. And I'm quite proud of it. The gold and black material inside has in fact got skulls on it, but who will see that? He thinks it's cool anyway. I have got a picture of my Elf in a princess dress from last year. No I'm not THAT blogger from the US, and I'm not posting it here OK! Walking down the stair...

For school holidays, I have an arrangement with Professor Mungleton, Elf's old nursery pal, as the parents all work.  Elf has been with Mungle's dad many times, and today was the first time that he'd come to us. Mr Humdrum stayed off today, I have that pleasure tomorrow. Mr H is then off the day after that too. Today, they made train tracks in the garden, developed a new addition to the luncheon repertoire, an Olive in Quaver which is an olive sandwiched between two Quavers. Obviously. Then they fed the ducks, played more cricket and made more train tracks. Tomorrow I'm taking them to the beach. Here they are playing music for the ducks and swans. You gotta love 'em.

I haven't blogged since the end of March and even then not regularly for a while. I have had a few things going on in my echoey head, and some good advice of "having a blogoliday" seemed to fit. I'm feeling more up to it now, so we'll see how this goes! Today we went for a family bike ride. Elf has ridden without stabilisers for coming up to a year soon, but he's still not got a road licence! He can now just about start properly by himself, and likes to go scrambling over the road with Mr Humdrum.  One of the reasons we moved to our current house at the end of September last year was to enjoy the huge piece of land opposite our house we call the common. OK so it's built on post-war landfill, but it's got three lakes, is next to the harbour and a small stony shore, and has a great area for scrambling. I envisaged family bike rides up to the pub at the top of the common. So today we did this for the first time! It was great to see the results of his w...

I have seriously lost the plot. Here are three things that have happened in the last two days to explain why: Yesterday at work, some marketing literature wasn't ordered. I was sure that I'd done something wrong and got into a right panic. Colleagues were telling me I hadn't done anything wrong but I was sure I had. I hadn't. (But then I did. Someone asked me how many brochures to print - and I replied during a training session. Wrongly. I told them to print 6000 brochures when really we needed 2700! Thankfully that person hadn't read my email properly and so hadn't ordered 6000. Phew.) Yesterday again, I forgot to book Elf into the afterschool club! I have been doing odd training days and have had to shift my hours and days round all over the place (costing  me an extra £50 you know!). How I managed to miss yesterday I do not know. Thankfully the school are fab and took him last minute. Today, now this is the weirdest thing. I had a day off and after lunch,...