Sunday 29 March 2009

I am not really the Bingo kinda girl. Or in fact, chocolate. Never really got the whole female obsession with the stuff and whilst I don't mind the odd bit of dark chocolate - on the whole I prefer nuts (though I am off some varieties at present).

So, on Saturday night we went to Chocolate Bingo. I had tried to persuade all offspring that we deserved a meal out but the Teenager worries too much about money. I am trying to win him around to the idea that occasionally we all deserve a treat but he worries too much. Instead, we went to Chocolate Bingo because it was local and it cost a mere 50p.

One of the little ones got half way through before declaring that he had enough of not winning and was now going to win. I liked his attitude, we didn't get any chocolate but that kind of spirit will get him far.

I realised that I am more than a little stupid. The teenager and friend disappeared home to cook dinner and threw a heap of Bingo cards in my direction. Not being a regular at the eyes down type affair - I laid them all in front of me an got to the point of hyperventilating before I realised that the nine cards were for 9 games and not for one. We played one, we lost. We probably won 15 tonnes of chocolate but since I couldn't keep up - we lost.

I learnt something else - try to juggle to many balls and you will drop all of them. So, my house is a mess, it is falling apart and I need to repaint everywhere. The garden has no grass, the dog has dug up all of my plants and there is chicken pooh everywhere. Two options - fall apart or pick a couple of things I can achieve. So I am picking a couple: I am still very limited by a lot of pain, so I can rule out decorating. I can just currently just about manage the washing. The knee has been given my own mental deadline of 2 weeks at which point, the not unattractive single man that lives opposite is going to help me tend my lawn, he has even offered to go and get the stuff I need. I may take up gardening more regularly.

Yet more things are broken. The phone is the bain of my life. It rings, the screen goes blank. It goes onto answering machine but the handset goes off before you can play it back. I give up, I resign myself to it all. So the phone doesn't work, the mobile is faulty - less time to talk, more time to get on with things. This is not necessarily bad. It is more peaceful and those that know me, know to text. Part of the car innards are now trailing on the tarmac. This is not good but the car is still going forwards, so it cannot be that bad. The new me, no sweat for the small stuff

We had a roast lunch cooked for us today. How utterly civilised. Strange thing this roast lunch malarkey. In one sense it is very homely and very grounding and in another it strikes the fear of God into me. I feel like I am preparing to die. Living in a house with an Aga had the same effect on me. All too conventional, all to predictable, all too safe and all too much like someone is holding my head under water. Yet at the same time, all very comforting and normal. I am a mixed up person.

I have now spent two hours making a Caterpillar outfit. Someone suggested inflatable swimming rings, which was a fantastic idea. Then I saw the stage and realised that my little grub would take up most of it, knock the two other grubs off and would grow up with a complex about the day he was the fat caterpillar. I couldn't do it - I must be getting soft. So the Caterpillar is almost complete when I realise that the other child is a Bug Inspector and I have to sew bugs on a lab coat.

I hate sewing, really, really hate it but I still remember the red letter box outfit that my Dad made me when I was little girl. I don't remember much about the outfit, more that my Dad made it and I won. This is what memories are made of. My little grub won't remember that he actually looked like a green cow with 6 black udders, he will remember that his mother turned him into a fantastic green caterpillar.

When, in years to come - my boys are choosing my care home, those memories will come flooding back and so, if it takes sewing black udders for an entire evening - it will be more than worth it.

I have now survived 11 days without a cigarette and am now an intermittent drug user rather than an addict.

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